A Matter of Luck
by greenstuff2
Summary: Charles maintains that who you meet and who you fall in love with is a matter of chance, so for two people from very different backgrounds with nothing in common ...
1. Chapter 1

3.54. Charles James checked the green numbers on the clock radio and heaved a deeply frustrated sigh, it was still the middle of the fucking night and it was pitch dark outside with the sound of heavy rain beating against the window and he was wide awake. He knew that no matter how hard he tried he wouldn't be able to drop off again, that sleep was over for another night. The insomnia had started some four months ago when the world as he knew it had come crashing down around his ears, leaving him in limbo waiting with a vain hope for something that now looked increasing unlikely to happen, and he wasn't sure how he'd cope if the unthinkable came true and he had to accept this situation as the reality of his life.

Eleven months ago he had thought he was the happiest bloke on the planet. Okay, he'd still missed being in the army, he probably always would, but his injuries meant that it would never have been the same again anyway, and his role as Mr. Fix it for a large multi-national company had turned out to be more than he could have possibly have dreamt of when he was first appointed. The company bought struggling U.K. businesses, often family run operations, then Charles and his team went in and either turned them around so that they became successful and profitable, usually with a lot of streamlining and judicial investment or they closed them down completely. He knew that his nickname was the 'hatchet man' but he reasoned that some of the staff kept their jobs which they wouldn't have done if the companies had gone bust, which was often all too likely. Not only had he found a new role which he was satisfyingly shit-hot at, but he couldn't believe his luck when he'd got married to Rebecca, tall and slim, she was blonde and beautiful and just about the coolest and classiest woman he'd ever met.

His team worked as a well-oiled machine, his years as an officer in the army had made him an excellent team leader, and his ability to formulate strategic plans was outstanding. He'd initially had some difficulty with the over-familiarity that Samantha the H.R. specialist had shown her new boss, but his impending marriage to the girl of his dreams had made him immune to her flirting and suggestive behaviour, so that eventually she'd given up and now treated him like any other colleague. The other two were male, so Robbie, the finance guy, and Stan the I.T. specialist had always just treated him as the boss, in fact all three now called him Boss, which gave him a warm feeling of familiarity from his army days.

He knew that they were finding him increasingly difficult to work with since his private life had all gone to shit, he was irritable and impatient and had become even more ruthless, they didn't understand because he hadn't told them what'd happened, he was still clinging to the hope that it would all sort itself out and that they'd never need to know. He especially didn't want Samantha to find out that Rebecca had left him, he didn't want to have to cope with a return to the behaviour of the early days without his wife as a human shield.

The first few months of their marriage had been great, more than great, perfect, or at least he'd thought so, she'd spent a small fortune doing up the house they'd bought in Richmond, turning it into a trendy modern minimalist tribute to interior fashion, and then, when she'd got bored with that, she'd gone out and bought a Tibetan Water Spaniel, which had some long and, as far as Charles was concerned stupid, kennel name, so he called him Parsnip. At the time he'd been a little concerned to find that Parsnip, an adorably cute puppy, was very, very hairy and needed a whole lot of careful grooming, because he was beginning to realise that Rebecca had a short attention span and he could see himself ending up on dog duties as she moved on to something else. He also hadn't realised that her low boredom threshold would apply to him and their marriage. Charles now hated the interior of the house, it was a cold and inhospitable tribute to a woman who'd pissed off, but he adored Parsnip, after all he was his sole company most evenings and weekends.

She'd upped and left out of the blue, with absolutely no warning of what was to come, or none that he'd seen, saying that she felt 'suffocated' and 'needed some space'. At first she'd been adamant that there was no-one else, that she wasn't having an affair or anything, but that she was going to stay in her best friend's spare room for a bit while she 'sorted her head out'. Initially she'd taken Parsnip with her, but two days later she'd bought him back, saying that he didn't get along with her friend's cats, something that Charles congratulated him on, he hated the pair of Siamese himself. He wasn't sure that was the truth anyway, somehow he couldn't see her scooping dog shit off the pavements in Twickenham as she took Parsnip for a walk, something she'd never done when she lived at home.

A couple of weeks ago he'd found out, during a chance meeting with one of her friends who thought he knew all about it, that she'd been lying to him and that she'd moved onto a bloke she'd met at the gym, something she now maintained was karma and that they couldn't help themselves. She wasn't living with him, well not as far as he knew anyway, but he wasn't sure that that wasn't just a matter of time, but he still hadn't told anyone that she'd left or why, not even his parents, it felt like such a failure. He was still expecting her to get bored with Mr Muscles and to walk back in at any moment and he certainly didn't want anyone to treat her any differently when she did.

6.00 and Radio 4 had come on as Charles got out of bed, it was still pitch dark and raining but he decided to take Parsnip and go for a long early morning run in the park, it would set him up for what was likely to be a fairly difficult and very tedious day, a day when he could have done with having had sufficient sleep. They were due to start sorting out a family-run printing business in Shoreditch, somewhere he didn't know and so he would need to use sat nav to find it; he had no intention of going on the train because he liked the feeling of being in his own cave when he'd finished a day with strangers, most of whom hated him. The business would more than likely have to be closed down, although it had a healthy order book it hadn't had any investment in new equipment for years and was making huge losses. In spite of that they were still employing at least twice as many people as they could possibly need, so that he and his team had wondered how many were being kept on as 'family pets', as they called the employees who had no discernible role.

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"Shitshitshitshitshitshit …" Molly stumbled around her room, almost falling over as she tried to tug a brush through her tangled curls at the same time as trying to find something to wear that hadn't spent weeks in a crumpled heap on the floor of her wardrobe. She was sure she'd set the alarm last night, but she hadn't heard it go off, making her look with deep suspicion at the bloke currently lying in her bed watching her. She was now seriously late.

"Come back to bed" He obviously thought he was irresistible as he gestured towards his erection as Molly glared at him, she couldn't believe that she'd brought him home from the pub again last night, she'd sworn to herself that it would never, ever happen again after the last time she'd woken up with him sharing her bed. She hadn't meant to go to the pub at all yesterday, she'd been intending to sort out a decent outfit for today, to iron things that needed ironing and to check that she had decent tights and that her shoes were polished; she'd been going to wash her hair and use the gallon of conditioner that it needed before she could blow it dry into any sort of sleek style, together with half a bottle of frizz-ease, and she'd ended up doing none of it. Instead she'd allowed the claustrophobic loneliness of the four walls of her small, tatty flat to send her to the pub for a half a lager and some company then hadn't come home until the small hours after a lock-in at the pub and she hadn't been alone, she'd bought Aiden back with her.

"Get up and fuck off out of it" She sniffed dubiously at the only pair of tights without ladders or holes that she could find, and then decided that they stank as though she'd found them in the bottom of the laundry bin, which she had. "You ain't staying here and some of us gotta go to work for a living."

"Throw a sickie"

For a second Molly was tempted, not that it would mean a return to bed with him, that was definitely never happening again, but then she remembered what Eddie had said to them all yesterday about how anyone who went off sick today was volunteering to be top of the redundancy list, and not only that, she'd thrown a sickie two weeks ago. She might have taken the dead relative option, but she'd killed off most of her fictional family and drew the line at tempting fate by using someone who really existed. Apart from that she needed this job, from the day she had flounced out of her east Ham home she'd been fiercely independent, she hadn't asked anyone for anything, and even if she was poor and very lonely, she wasn't going to start now.

No, she decided the tights really wouldn't do, she'd have to wear jeans, so she tipped out the laundry basket again and sorted out the least grubby and smelly pair to wriggle into; she knew she'd really have to visit the Launderette soon, something else she'd meant to do yesterday evening, otherwise she'd be going to work naked.

"No, just bleeding well get dressed and sod off, Aiden, otherwise you can go like you are and I'll chuck your clothes out after you"

He started to get dressed, muttering under his breath about cups of tea and toast, mutterings that Molly ignored, she was terrifyingly late now without doing the breakfast bit of Bed and Breakfast for an arsehole she never wanted to see again. She hadn't even got time to make herself something and would have to spend money she could ill afford on getting something on the way into work, and then hope that she had enough money left to get something to eat by the time payday came round at the end of the month, that is if she still had a job to go by then. She pulled on her grubby trainers, then changed her mind and put on a pair of open sandals, and a crumpled white top and hoped that her body heat would make the worst of the creases drop out by the time she'd run for the bus and then run the last few hundred yards to the old building that housed the printing works where she'd been happily employed for the last two years. She knew she wasn't the best employee they had, but Eddie, the elderly owner of the company, was fond of her and had told her that he kept her on because she was pretty and she made him laugh. Molly couldn't see that this 'hatchet man' from their new Head Office was going to be desperately impressed with that as a reference.

It was very obviously late when she got to the bus stop, all the schoolkids had vanished, some of them had maybe even gone to school, and the queue of people rushing to get to work had been replaced by pensioners with shopping bags and mums with pushchairs. Fuck, fuck, fuck, the sandals had been a mistake as she'd had to keep stopping to put them back on and had finally taken them off and run in bare feet and she was now almost in tears as she struggled to get her hair to stay put in the messy topknot she was attempting before she'd realised that she'd forgotten to bring her brush. She was hot and sweaty and breathless and her hair was already falling down by the time she finally got there only to find the building ominously quiet, the only person about was the old boy who did the commissionaire bit and he was sitting at the reception desk reading 'The Sun'.

"Yer missed it" She thought for a minute that he meant that they'd closed the place down already and told everyone to piss off.

"What?"

"They're all in there listening to some bloke from Head Office" he pointed to the canteen, which was the biggest room in the building "Been there nearly an hour they have" He thought for a moment and then sucked his teeth "You're bleeding late ain't you?"

"Yeah, alarm didn't go off"

She didn't know why she was explaining to him, it was none of his business, then wondered disconsolately what the hell to do next. She couldn't just bowl in there as bold as brass and make an excuse, she didn't have one and anyway she didn't have that much neck, and she couldn't just turn round and go home, the old boy was bound to tell Eddie she'd been there, so she went to her own bit of the cluttered and very untidy main office and put the kettle on, at least she could have a cup of tea before she went to the Ladies and tidied herself up a bit. If she was going to get fired then pride dictated that she might as well try and look the best she could, even though it wouldn't be that great given the raw material.

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 **A/N: Two completely different backgrounds, so what could they possibly have in common …**


	2. Chapter 2

The plan to tart herself up a bit fell at the first hurdle, when she'd got ready in a panic that morning she'd completely forgotten her make-up as well as her hair brush so a quick splash of water on her face and a rake through her hair with her fingers was the extent of the make-over. With the best will in the world she didn't think it would be enough to make any difference to her fate, which she was convinced was sealed when Doreen, one of the motherly, elderly women who'd worked in the office for about a hundred years, came in to use the loo.

"There you are, Molls, what 'appened to you? I think Eddie was a bit narked wiv you this morning, he was looking everywhere for you"

"Shit, was he?"

"Yup, probably wondering why you wasn't 'ere to meet this Head Office geezer"

"What's he like?"

"If I was thirty years younger, I'd think he was a bit tasty, bit bleeding miserable though. Saw 'im looking at me slippers as though he'd never seen 'em before" Doreen wore bedroom slippers in the office all day because of her bunions.

"You sound like me Nan" Molly giggled "And at least your feet are clean, mine are bloody filthy, I 'ad to take me sandals off to run for the bus. 'ave I missed much?"

"Don't know, wasn't really listening, got a nice voice though, very posh, I just don't think it's got anything much to do with me. Tell you what, we've stopped for a cuppa, then it's Cruella's turn to tell us what's what, so why don't you just come back in wiv me and we'll pretend you've been there all the time"

"Who's Cruella?" Doreen was making her giggle.

"You'll see"

"I don't know if it's worth it, Dor, I reckon I'll be signing on by the end of the week. This morning will 'ave put the kibosh on any chance I 'ad"

"Rubbish, you know Eddie thinks the world of you, it'll be me and the other old 'uns what are chopped, you'll see, what with all these new computer systems 'n that, you're young and pretty, you'll be okay"

"I'd rather they kept me cos I was good at something"

Molly tried to keep a low profile as she sidled back into the canteen with Doreen and sat at one of the tables with the other office staff. She saw Eddie notice her tap his watch and shake his head slightly, but she turned her attention to the woman Doreen had called Cruella and tried not to giggle. She introduced herself as Samantha H.R., which just for a minute Molly thought was her surname and saw that Doreen had a point. She was very tall and pencil slim, with glossy dark hair in a neat French pleat, dark rimmed glasses, a classy black suit with a pristine white shirt and killer heels and she looked shiny, as though she'd been 'polished' which made Molly feel even more like a scruffy urchin. Her finger nails were beautifully manicured and varnished with dark red polish so that Molly took one look then sat on her hands and then tried to tuck her feet behind the rungs of her chair to hide the fact that they were filthy.

She finally took a long look at the bloke from Head Office and saw what Doreen had been on about, he was good looking with dark hair and he was wearing a very nice suit but he had the sternest, most miserable expression on his face that she'd ever seen. As she looked at him he suddenly looked up and saw her looking at him and said something to Eddie, who looked at her then answered, making her turn her head away quickly but leaving her even more convinced than ever that she would be collecting her P.45 before the day was out.

.

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Eddie had kept looking at his watch while Charles was giving the outline of the initial steps they intended taking to turn the business around, an action that had started to irritate him beyond belief, so much so that he'd wanted to stop and ask him if he had somewhere else to be and if so, to feel free to fuck off and leave him to it. He wasn't used to an ex-owner of a business staying on but Eddie had negotiated it as part of the take-over, and it was going to make it difficult, if not impossible, to close things down and he'd not made the best first impression by pissing Charles off, something he knew wasn't very difficult these days. He was tired, slightly bored and very irritable, in completely the wrong frame of mind for the job he was there to do.

He'd noticed the extra girl in the group of office workers as soon as the coffee break was over and had felt a wave of skin tightening irritation that she hadn't even bothered to show up in time for his opening session. She was paying close attention to Samantha, who was as usual starting her spiel with all the positives of working under the umbrella of a large corporation, how it wouldn't affect existing pension and long service agreements and all about taking advantage of staff development opportunities. She barely touched on the possibility of redundancies, lying through her teeth with professional expertise when she said they would be minimal and only where totally unavoidable. Charles wouldn't mind betting that this girl was going to turn out to be one of the 'family pets' they'd identified as expendable when they'd checked the staff lists before coming on-site, and that she would be one of the first to go.

The next time he looked at her she was staring at him instead of listening to Samantha, a fact that annoyed him even more for some reason, so that even though she hastily turned her head and looked back at Samantha, he asked Eddie who she was. Eddie knew who he was talking about immediately.

"That's our Molly, Molly Dawes"

There was a note of affectionate indulgence in Eddie's voice, underlining Charles' conviction that she was, somehow, a friend of his, despite her youth and appallingly inappropriate dress sense. What sort of friend he didn't want to speculate; Eddie was past retirement age and was an almost bald and paunchy old man whereas this girl was very young and, he looked over at her again, pretty in a scruffy sort of way.

It was nearly lunch time when the meeting finally broke up and the canteen staff could get on with preparing a scratch meal for the workers. The normal subsidised cooked lunch would have to be sacrificed because of lack of time, a fact that completely pissed Molly off. She relied on the cheap cooked meal at work to subsidise her meagre budget for food and she hadn't eaten since the night before so that her stomach was rumbling for something far more substantial than a cheese sandwich. Most of the staff didn't bother to go back to work before eating, but sat or stood in groups discussing what they'd been listening to all morning. Molly was sitting on the edge of a table, holding on with her hands and swinging her filthy bare feet, she had lost her sandals under the table, when "Mr I'm so bleeding miserable" from Head Office appeared in the canteen doorway.

"Miss Dawes" he jerked his head for Molly to follow him. She pulled an "Oh shit, told you so" face at the others and jumped down to the floor but couldn't immediately see her sandals, so she followed him in her bare feet, looking back over her shoulder and pulling a face at the sudden silence which had greeted his summons. He held the door for her, drawing attention to the fact that he was very, very tall; she barely had to duck her head to walk under his arm, and then led her into the largest of the offices which had been cleared for their use.

Samantha H.R., was sitting behind the desk and half stood to greet Molly and point to the chair the other side of the desk. "Mr Misery Guts" sat in one of the chairs behind her, making her feel at an immediate disadvantage because she couldn't see him but could feel him watching her.

"Sit down Miss Dawes, Molly is it?" Molly nodded, she appeared to have lost the power of speech, and her mouth was too dry.

"We noticed you missed the first part of the meeting this morning"

Samantha took her glasses off and looked at her as she frantically tried to think of a decent excuse. She quickly thought of and dismissed suicide on the tube line, just in case they knew she didn't get the tube, or a bus crash as being too easily checked, and then couldn't think of anything else so plumped for the truth "Sorry, alarm didn't work"

"No matter" Samantha raised her eyebrows to show that she wasn't necessarily telling the truth "But you didn't get a chance to tell us what you do, so would you like to do it now"

Not really was Molly's first horror filled instinct as she desperately tried to think what the fuck she did do and mentally cursed Doreen for not telling her about this bit. She looked Samantha fully in the face for the first time since coming into the room and saw the barely concealed smug smirk on the other girl's face and suddenly _hated_ her.

"Well, I, um, sometimes 'elp in the shop bit" There was a small and very dusty old fashioned retail shop front which rarely had any customers, most of their business was commercial "and I do reception sometimes, when Karen needs the loo or something, and um " She desperately racked her brains as to what she did all day "Um, I pack parcels if Bert's rushed and needs 'elp before the courier gets 'ere, and I, um, I make tea and check invoices and stuff and I just do whatever really" She turned her head to see what the Head Office geezer was doing, but he wasn't looking at her, just making notes on a pad on his knee.

"Are you computer literate?"

"What?"

"Do you know how to use any of the systems on the computer?"

"Not really"

No and you bleeding know I don't, you smug cow, all I know is how to use me sodding mobile and I could do on-line shopping, if I ever had any bleeding money to buy anything with. Somehow Molly knew that despite her professional mask of bland interest, Samantha was enjoying this.

"Okaaaaay, thank you Molly, you can go and get some lunch now"

Molly wasn't sure what she was supposed to say, but she was buggered if she was going to say thanks to the cow, so she nodded and got up ready to leave. As she turned to walk towards the door and he got up to open it, the cow had one more nail to hammer into her coffin.

"Oh, and Molly"

"Yeah?"

"There's no uniform as such here, but it might be a good idea to think about the dress code for the office, especially if you're going to relieve on reception, maybe start with thinking about wearing some shoes perhaps" Samantha smiled sweetly as she looked pointedly at Molly's bare and filthy feet. Molly didn't bother to answer but she could feel the hot flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck as she smiled weakly and left the room without a backward glance, she _hated_ them both.

Charles had been quite surprised at Samantha's parting jibe, even he could see that it had been unnecessarily bitchy, especially as this was someone who was almost certainly due for the chop, she usually reserved those sort of put-downs for the very pretty or clever girls she felt threatened by, something that the rest of the team had commented on before when she'd been out of earshot. This girl didn't fit the usual pattern; she was a 'family pet' who was probably going to be top of the redundancy list so the comment had been snide and unnecessary. Charles had looked at her face as she'd left the room and been left with the impression of sulky defiance with a red blotchy neck from the flush that was creeping up towards her face and a huge pair of sea green eyes swimming in tears.

He was leaving for Head Office and a management meeting he didn't want to attend, when he saw her talking to Eddie Parker with her head down looking at the floor. Whatever she was saying made Parker put his fingers under her chin and tilt her face so that she was forced to look at him as he talked to her, an inter-action that infuriated Charles. She was quite obviously whinging, but, in the long run it wasn't going to make any difference to her future how close she was to Eddie, all it did was make him more suspicious than ever about the nature of their relationship.

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 **A/N: Thanks for your feedback, I am glad that you enjoyed the start, the background, and hope that you enjoyed this, which is still really setting the scene, because I never intended this to be a 'love at first sight' situation, they both have too many problems…..**


	3. Chapter 3

He could hear Parsnip's claws skittering across the wooden floor of the hallway, sending the rug flying as he always did as he raced to the front door when he heard Charles' key in the lock. As welcomes go, it was heart-warming, and even though Parsnip couldn't actually speak to him Charles knew he was thrilled to see him, which put him in a minority of one these days. The girl who came in to tidy round and take Parsnip for a walk at lunchtimes had left him her usual 'all is O.K.' note on the kitchen table as he poured himself a large glass of wine and started the weary trudge up to change out of his suit, then lay on the bed contemplating the long and very lonely evening stretching in front of him. He knew that this couldn't go on, he had to stop feeling sorry for himself, to stop dicking about and take some sort of action, either have it out with Rebecca and, if necessary, put a full stop to things, or start to move on in some way. He needed to do _something,_ not just sit here night after night waiting for her to walk back in, when that might never happen. He would start by getting this house valued and then tell her that he was putting it up for sale, he hated it here now and the threat of losing it might well concentrate her mind.

Decision made, he started mulling over his day, the ghastly management meeting he'd attended that afternoon, full of self-important windbags who'd enjoyed the sounds of their own voices and who'd droned on and on and argued round and round in circles until they'd filled him with frustrated boredom and then he started to think about the meeting at Parkers. He hadn't been anywhere near his best this morning, not his usual self at all when he'd allowed Eddie Parker to irritate the fuck out of him which had been completely unprofessional and then he'd allowed bloody Samantha to exercise her bitch muscle in front of him. He knew that he was going to have to have a chat with her sooner rather than later, she was excellent at some parts of her job but, and it was becoming a very big but, she too often let her personal feelings interfere with her judgment when she spoke to people. He had no idea why that tiny, scruffy kid had got up her nose so much, or why he couldn't shake the memory of those green eyes swimming in tears, a memory that was haunting him, all he knew was that it made him feel uncomfortably guilty and it wasn't a feeling he was used to.

He was glad that he wasn't due to go back there for at least a week, Samantha would, by then, have started to compile the first list of possible redundancies for consideration by the team, a list he fully expected to be headed by a certain Miss Dawes. He wasn't looking forward to the obligatory meeting with Eddie Parker, he'd been told at the management meeting that all redundancies would have to be discussed with the ex-owner, who would have to sanction them before they were implemented, a fact that he could see was going to mean trouble and a fact that royally pissed him off. He wasn't used to having to justify his decisions to any one, let alone some old boy who'd made a bloody mess of running his business and was almost certainly messing about with some little girl less than half his age, dirty old bugger. In the meantime, he would contact a couple of estate agents and get the house valued, then call Rebecca and tell her what was happening as he started trying to re-build some sort of private life.

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"You're still 'ere then" Doreen tried not to sound surprised as Molly re-joined the group in the canteen "See, told you you'd be okay didn't I?"

"Wouldn't put your pension on me still being 'ere at the end of the month if I was you" Molly grimaced at the others "And you might 'ave told me I'd 'ave to tell them what I do all day"

"We didn't 'ave to, only to say what our job is, like Karen had to say Reception and Bert 'ere that he's a packer, and me, well that I'm a clerk, we didn't 'ave to say what we actually _do"_

"Oh, just me then" Molly laughed "Why don't that surprise me? And that cheeky cow told me to buy some shoes"

"Well, she might have had a point there" Bert laughed and looked at Molly's filthy feet as everyone, including Molly, joined in.

"Don't you bleeding start"

"What's going on?" Eddie had wandered in and joined the group without any fanfare. He prided himself on the way he got on with the staff, he saw himself as a patriarch at the head of a large family of very old friends rather than employees and he was deeply upset that the board, most of them greedy members of his real family, had sold their shares in the business out from under his feet making it impossible for him to carry on alone. He knew the company was in the shit and getting further buried in it every day, but he had been looking for some investment, not to be sold down the river to some faceless corporation fronted by smug bastards whose only objective was profit. He had dug his heels in and refused to sell his shares until they'd conceded on one point, he'd made it a condition of the sale that he would stay on as General Manager for the transition period and that there were to be no redundancies without his approval. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, that the posh young bastard from Head Office wasn't going to be very happy with him, but he was determined to stick to his guns, he wasn't going to make anything easy for them and, as far as he was concerned, there weren't going to be any redundancies at all.

"What happened to you this morning, Doll?" He turned to Molly with a questioning look on his face "It wasn't the best morning to be bloody late you know"

"I know, I'm really sorry, Eddie, the bleeding alarm didn't go off"

"Well, never mind, it's too late to worry about it now, it's done"

"I don't think that snotty witch saw it like that"

"Who?" Eddie laughed.

"That H.R. woman, Doreen calls her Cruella, you know after the dog woman in the film, but she's a right cow, wanted to know what I do all day and whether I was computer literate, whatever the fuck that means, I don't think she likes me very much"

"Come here" he walked out of the canteen gesturing that Molly should follow him "What exactly happened?"

Molly looked at her feet. "She wanted to know why I was late and then she asked me what I do all day, Oh and then ticked me off for not 'aving me shoes on, like I was back at school. I reckon I'm for the 'igh jump as soon as they take over"

He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up so that she was forced to look at him.

"Was he there?"

"Yeah"

"Listen, they've already taken over Doll, but there aren't going to be any redundancies, not while I'm around anyway and if that long streak of piss wants a fight, a fight is what he'll get.

"Oh Eddie, I'm not sure you should…."

"Nonsense, I love a good scrap me, you know I do, and I don't like the way he was strutting around here this morning as if he bloody owns the place, well they all were, but it still says Parkers over that door. Maybe we'll send you on some of these development things that she was banging on about this morning, make you, what did you call it, computer literate, that'll show them, but the one thing I do know, you are not going anywhere, okay?"

"Okay"

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Despite Eddie's reassurances, Molly's confidence in her future had all but drained away by the time she put the key in the lock of her front door. The Landlord called it a studio flat, but it was more of a tatty bedsitter with a cupboard of a kitchen and a small loo come shower room, but it had the advantage of being somewhere she could almost afford. She could just about manage the rent and the expenses on her meagre pay from Parkers, even if she had almost no budget for anything else, there were times when some of Nan's 'moody food' wouldn't go amiss, and going to the pub for half a pint meant that she had to go without something, usually the bus ride to work, which meant that she had to get up early enough to walk and save the fare. Molly didn't resent the poor pay, she knew she was lucky to have the job and to be earning any salary at all, because she was totally unqualified to do anything, hadn't passed any exams at all and she'd had virtually no education. It was very important to her that she stayed independent so that she didn't have to swallow her pride and eat humble pie to go crawling home, that is if she was even welcome to go back there, her last row with her dad had been pretty catastrophic and, apart from the odd phone call with her mum, she'd had no contact with her family, not even her Nan, for almost two years.

She started to pick up the clothes spread all over the floor and then sorted them out for washing; she would visit the Launderette and then do some ironing. It was vitally important to her that she didn't give into temptation and go to the pub again to escape for a bit and to find some company, she knew that it was becoming an all too easy option and she was terrified that she would turn into her dad. She'd read somewhere that a tendency to drink too much was hereditary, not that she did drink too much, she couldn't afford to, but the pub was starting to feel a little bit too much like home and what had happened this morning had been a real wake-up call.

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 **A/N: Things really start to change in the next chapter as circumstances throw them together for the first time and a tentative friendship starts to develop.**

 **Thank you for your kind comments; as usual it's your reviews that keep me writing.**


	4. Chapter 4

"No, No, maybe, no, no, no" Eddie parker was looking down the list of names on the possible redundancy list as Charles sat on the other side of the desk and tried to curb his impatience. The list drawn up by Samantha had, as expected included Molly Dawes and also the receptionist Karen and Charles was hoping against hope that it was a coincidence that they were the two youngest and prettiest girls who worked there. The others on the list were a part-timer and three old boys from the print shop, all three of whom were past retirement age, but Parker seemed determined to fight to keep them all, a fact that Charles was finding deeply frustrating.

His visits to Parkers had all been difficult, it was obvious that Eddie resented his presence and he hadn't managed to make any progress at all. Stan had laughed like a drain when he'd made some reference to Parker's relationship with Dawes, said he was hallucinating and that Eddie had an identical relationship with all his staff from Jessie the lady who came in and cleaned the loos to Doreen who wore carpet slippers all day and clock-watched quite blatantly.

Stan was the member of the team who had spent most time at Parkers, he had been doing a feasibility study for the new computer systems and to Charles' surprise appeared to like the Dawes girl a lot, said she was a quick learner and was blessed with a great sense of humour, and that they should forget the fact that she was a 'looker' and just treat her the same as any other member of staff. Charles had raised an eyebrow at Stan, he certainly hadn't pegged her as a 'looker' so Stan had laughed and said that his problem was that he hadn't been married long enough to notice other girls and that when he'd first been with Alex he'd been the same, eyes only for each other and at it like rabbits, morning, noon and night.

For some reason Charles found himself confiding in Stan that Rebecca might very well have been at it like a rabbit, but not with him, and that he'd 'suffocated' her, Charles waved his fingers in the air to indicate inverted commas, something that could only be cured, apparently, by her shagging someone else. Stan looked shocked as Charles began to regret his impulse to offload and hastily asked him to keep it to himself, giving a pointed nod in the direction of Samantha and Robbie who were having a whispered conversation at the other end of the office. Stan had looked a bit affronted as he'd replied that he was very sorry to hear it Boss, but that he certainly wouldn't tell the others because in his humble opinion the last thing Charles needed was the office man eater trying to get into his pants again, which gave Charles an interesting insight into the way Samantha was seen by the others.

"I put our Molly down for one of your computer courses but that girl who works for you said there were no spaces" Eddie pointed to the sheet of paper belligerently "Was this why? because you were intending to get rid of her? Well, it isn't going to happen"

"Mr Parker, …..Eddie…., the problem is that we have to make some cost savings, reduce the overheads before we get some investment here, so we have to look at things again" Charles mentally thanked Samantha for making his task of convincing Eddie that he was totally impartial so much harder.

"Okay, if we must I suppose" Eddie made a big show of giving in "We can let the part timer and the old boys go if you put our Molly on the course" He didn't tell Charles that they had all already volunteered to take redundancy, the part timer because she was moving, one of the old boys because his doctor had advised him to and the other two because they wanted to go, but he was buggered if he was going to tell Charles any of that.

Charles wasn't exactly happy with their progress, he was beginning to feel that he was banging his head against a brick wall dealing with Eddie but he also wasn't as stupid as Eddie seemed to think he was, there was more to this than met the eye because the old boy had caved in just a little bit too quickly, but it meant they had at least made some headway, if not much. He was going to have to look at cost savings elsewhere, starting with the subsidised hot meals, a saving he didn't have to run by the old bugger first, it wasn't a redundancy.

The closure of the canteen took a couple of weeks to implement and sent shock waves all the way to the management team at Head Office, Eddie was incensed that he hadn't been consulted, but the team supported Charles for what seemed like the first time in weeks, and the canteen remained closed. Charles knew he was going to be even more deeply unpopular on his next visit, if such a thing was possible, so took a deep breath before going in at the front door and wondered for a minute what it would be like to go back to working with people who actually like you as he'd done himself once upon a time. It was times like these that he missed the absolute camaraderie of his old platoon in the army, where tough decisions had to be made but no-one held you personally responsible.

The two box files he was carrying were heavy so he called out to whoever was closing the doors of the lift to hang on for him and then wished he hadn't as he saw who it was in the lift. She didn't look any more pleased to see him than he was to see her, their paths hadn't actually crossed since she had been at the receiving end of Samantha's spite and he had sat there listening, she had avoided him like the plague, always looking the other way when he was around and walking away when he came into the offices so that he now felt slightly uncomfortable in her presence. He looked at her standing determinedly not meeting his eyes and saw with a small shock that Stan had been 100% right about her being a looker, those green eyes and the mass of long curly hair, it explained a lot about Samantha's attitude that first day but he couldn't for the life of him work out why he hadn't noticed. All he'd remembered about her was that she was small and scruffy and the way she'd flushed with embarrassment or resentment and those tear filled eyes.

There was a palpable silence as the ancient lift creaked and groaned its way slowly upwards as they each studiously ignored the other and Charles racked his brains for something to say, when the lift suddenly lurched and banged and jolted to a halt as the doors started juddering, trying to open and then stopped. They were obviously stuck between floors and Molly immediately started to panic.

"What's 'appening, I can't stay in 'ere, I gotta get out"

"It'll be okay, they'll get it going in a minute" Charles cursed his luck, he was not only stuck in an old metal box half way up an ancient tatty building, but he was stuck with someone who was obviously about to have a full blown panic attack.

"How it's gonna be okay? Oh fuck, how are we gonna get out of 'ere?"

Oh fuck indeed, Charles couldn't agree more but he could hear the note of raw panic in her voice and knew he'd have to do something otherwise she was likely to get hysterical and he'd end up having to slap her face, and then he'd probably get sued.

"Sit down and breathe deeply and you'll be fine, they'll get us out of here in no time" He sat on the floor next to her "We can have a little chat, maybe get to know one another"

"Sorry, I'm not usually scared of anything, I'm hard as nails, me, but I can't hack being shut in anywhere where I can't get out, it freaks me out, has done ever since I were little" She tried to take a deep breath and then looked at him sitting next to her and tried hard to laugh "That's doing your posh suit the world of good, innit?"

"It'll clean off and at least you're dressed for sitting on the floor" He grinned as he looked at her jeans "Tell me Molly, do you ever wear anything else but jeans?"

"Course" She giggled "But not often, shouldn't we be shouting or something?"

"I'm not sure they could hear us and I'm sure they know we're here" He tried to sound as reassuring as he could; he had been prematurely congratulating himself on getting her to think about something else "How's the computer course going?"

"Wouldn't know, they haven't put me on it" Charles made a mental note to thank Samantha again for her co-operation as Molly went on "Stan's been helping me out with the basic stuff, he's well nice"

"I'm sure he thinks you're nice as well" Charles was mentally running over what Stan had said about her, adding two and two and making six when she started laughing at him again "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, you're well out of order. I can't believe you don't know"

"Know what?" he began to laugh, her giggling was infectious

"That Stan's got a partner, you know, a _partner?_ " She raised her eyebrows.

"Yes of course he has, Alex, he's been with her for years, but that doesn't mean he can't find some other girl….."

"Met _her_ have you?" She began to laugh again as she interrupted him "I REALLY can't believe you don't know" She suddenly realised that if Stan hadn't told him maybe he didn't want him to know for some reason "Please don't tell him I told you, I shouldn't have done, but I didn't know it was a secret"

When the penny finally dropped, Charles was secretly appalled that Stan hadn't been more open with them within the team or him in particular. He thought back and he was pretty damn sure that Stan had given them the impression that Alex was female, or maybe they'd jumped to that conclusion and he hadn't corrected them. Charles had no idea why Stan would have done that, when he'd obviously confided in this girl, but he was beginning to feel that he didn't know anyone very well any more.

"How long will the air last in 'ere, cos I can't 'ear them trying to get us out, can you?" He could hear the rising note of panic coming back into her voice and smiled into her pallid face, she was so pale that he hoped like hell that her fear wasn't going to make her throw up.

"The air will last for hours, way past when they've got us of here" he said a silent prayer of 'or at least I bloody well hope so' as he tried to reassure her "and we probably can't hear them because they're way up at the top looking at how to wind this thing up or even waiting for the fire brigade to come and sort it out"

She thought about what he'd said for a minute then screamed as the lights went out and they were plunged into total darkness "Shit, shit, shit" she was whimpering as he felt for and picked up her hand while silently agreeing with her. Shit seemed to adequately describe their predicament, and he wasn't too happy himself now, being stuck in a stuffy sealed metal box was bad enough, now it felt like a coffin.

"Don't worry, they've probably turned the power off so that they can work on the mechanism" or at least I fucking hope that's what it is was his private thought as he tried hard to think of another topic to distract her. "Where do you live?" He was still holding her hand but dropped it when the dim emergency light came on and she breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"Not far, I've got a flat in 'ackney, at least that's what the Landlord says it is" She laughed "I reckon it's more of a cupboard meself, but it's all I can afford, especially now"

"Why especially now?"

"I need to pay more for me food now, since you took away our dinners" She sighed "Eddie used to make sure that we could all afford to have a decent feed that wasn't chips from the chippie"

"There were reasons, Molly; we had to make some savings"

"Yeah, well it's alright for you and the snotty witch, even for Stan, although 'e's alright, 'e's nice, cos you can afford to go anywhere and eat, most of us can't"

Charles was once again feeling that he was way out of touch; he'd considered that the subsidised meals were an expensive perk which could easily be dispensed with, not a lifeline. He wondered how many other people were in the same boat as Molly. 'Snotty witch' summed up Samantha perfectly, but he wondered whether she'd intended to tell him that she didn't like him by pointing out that Stan was the exception to the rest of them, because he was nice.

"Do you live on your own?"

"Yeah I told you, it's a cupboard, there's only enough room for me not for someone else as well" She laughed "Anyway I don't believe in all that living together, marriage, kids, 'appy ever after shit, I've never met anyone I wanna be with all the time, you know like best friends who can't keep their 'ands off each other. What about you?"

"No, I haven't got a best friend who can't keep their hands off me"

Molly giggled. "I meant where do you live? And what about your wife?"

"Richmond on the river and how did you know I've got a wife?"

"The wedding ring's a bit of a giveaway" She giggled again and pointed to his left hand.

"Oh yes, I forgot about that. I shouldn't really be wearing it any more, we're sort of separated" He tugged off the ring and put it in his pocket "My wife can't keep her hands off someone but unfortunately it's not me, she's busy chasing someone else"

"Shit …Will she come back d'you think?"

"I haven't got a clue… possibly"

"Do you want her to?"

"Apparently I do, so I must be a masochist"

Molly looked at him for a moment with a look of puzzled bewilderment on her face as she obviously didn't understand the word, then laughed "Whatever"

"Must like banging my head against a brick wall" He explained and then laughed "Come on that's enough about my love life, let's talk about something else" as he wondered what the hell was wrong with him, he was airing his marriage woes for the second time in a few days, and this time to somebody completely inappropriate.

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 **A/N** : **Thank you for your reviews, I love that so many of you are enjoying this different take on their story. To pre-empt any concerns about Molly showing fear at being trapped, I know that some people think she's not afraid of anything, or rather wouldn't show it if she was, all will become clear in Chapter 5. Hope you enjoy this.**

 **To answer the query about Consequences, the answer is yes, I will be re-visiting it later.**


	5. Chapter 5

"What do you think they're doing out there cos it's taking a bleeding long time innit?"

"I don't think it's taken that long, Molly, it just feels like it" Actually he was beginning to feel that it was taking a lifetime and despite what he was saying to Molly he was now seriously worried that he couldn't hear anything at all happening outside the four walls, surely somebody had noticed by now that the lift was stuck and was checking to see whether there were people stuck in it. "Someone will be working out how to wind this thing up or be getting the fire brigade or someone, don't worry we'll be out of here soon" She gave a little scream as the lift jolted and then dropped down a couple of feet.

"Shit, this thing ain't gonna drop right down to the bottom is it?

"Of course not" he said in the calmest voice he could muster as he said a small silent prayer of I bloody well hope not "I expect it was just someone sorting out the mechanism for winding us up" or at least that's what I fucking hope it was, her fear was starting to be infectious.

"Good, cos I don't wanna end up in the dipshit slot on the local news"

"The what?"

"The dipshit slot, you know, the bit at the end of the local news on tele where they show someone local what's done something bleeding stupid or 'ad something stupid 'appen to them or a tragedy or something …"

Charles laughed "Oh, the dipstick slot you mean"

"Not where I come from, we call it the dipshit slot"

He laughed again, "No matter, it's not going to happen, we'll be out of here any minute, you'll see" As he spoke the lift started to creak slowly upwards a few inches at a time, "See, what did I tell you?"

Molly beamed at him with relief and he saw what Stan had obviously seen in his day to day dealings with her, that she was not just a looker; she was beautiful, so that he found himself grinning back, almost as relieved as she was. As the lift kept on inching up towards the floor above, they sat on the floor grinning at each other as they could hear a whole hubbub of people now calling out about how to force the doors open.

"Thanks, Mr. James"

"It's Charles and you're very welcome, I wouldn't want to be stuck in a lift with anyone else Miss Dawes"

"It was Molly just now, and don't worry it isn't never gonna 'appen again, cos I'm never, ever gonna get in another bleeding lift as long as I live, specially not this one"

"Why not? We got stuck in here and we survived didn't we? What's the worst that could happen?"

"We could get stuck again"

"True"

As the lift finally reached where it should have stopped in the first place, he could hear himself being all brave and alpha male, but Charles knew that he would also be taking the stairs from now on, there was no way he was getting in this lift again, but he wasn't about to tell Molly that. He stood up and dusted the seat of his trousers then put out a hand to help her up onto her feet as a babble of voices broke out again arguing about the best way to crow bar the door open, so he bent and whispered "Not a moment too soon, I'm dying for a pee".

"Me too, and it ain't 'elping that you're making me laugh"

Once the doors were fully forced open and they were freed, they were surrounded by a crowd of staff all talking at once and a couple of firemen and it was a few minutes before Molly realised that he'd vanished and that she hadn't had a chance to say thank you properly or to say goodbye which left her feeling restless. She knew that if it hadn't been for him she would have been in a complete panic and would have totally lost it. He was nothing like her pre-conceived idea of him, an idea that had been formed when Eddie had told her that he'd wanted to make her redundant, something she found hard to believe now, in fact, she could quite easily get to like him, quite a lot in fact.

Molly acknowledged that her fear of being shut in with no way out was never going to go completely, especially now, so she was determined never to get in a lift again. Knowing what had caused her claustrophobia and being able to deal with it were two entirely different things and she'd seen using the lift at work as a challenge, one she'd got quite blasé about, so that she'd almost convinced herself she could handle it, until this afternoon that is. She'd never been able to explain to anyone what had caused her fear, she was too ashamed, but she'd been a very small girl and her father was looking after her when he'd shut her in a cupboard as a punishment for something, she didn't know what now, and he'd then fallen asleep, probably pissed. She remembered the sheer terror of not being able to get out and of yelling and screaming and crying until she was sick, then wetting herself with fear when no-one came. She had no idea how long she'd been shut in there, but her ordeal had lasted until her Mum and Nan had come home from Bingo and let her out. She'd always wanted to believe that it was an accident, that he hadn't meant to do it and had just forgotten she was there, but she had a memory of her Mum, yelling and screaming at him, then an even more vivid memory of her Nan lamping him round the head, and all she knew was that after that her Mum gave up going to Bingo and never left her with him again.

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He found himself thinking about her a lot as he drove home, how she was nothing like his pre-conceived idea of her, an idea that had been formed on that first disastrous morning at Parkers. He'd made a snap judgment based on appearances and a whole bucket load of prejudice, and had come to the conclusion that she was an old man's plaything who wasn't worth bothering with.

He also wasn't very happy with himself, with the person he'd become. Why hadn't Stan felt able to be honest with him, and the rest of the team for that matter, about who he was and about the most important person in his life? Why hadn't he reined Samantha in when she'd bullied people? He knew she was doing it, he'd seen it for himself and had even sat there whilst she did it. Why had he made arbitrary decisions without considering the effect on other people? The canteen at Parkers wasn't the only one; there had been other decisions in other companies that had been popular at Head Office, they were all about maximising profits, but he was not so sure about them now. And why had he been so convinced that Eddie Parker was his cross to bear, that he was a bloody old nuisance who was out to thwart him at every turn, after all without Eddie, Molly would now be out of a job and out of her cupboard in Hackney. He wasn't sure what he was going to do about the hot food situation at Parkers, but he knew he had to do something to square his conscience.

She was parked outside the house talking on her mobile while she waited for him to come home, for some reason she hadn't used her key to let herself in, and he felt the usual surge of happy anticipation he always felt when he saw her. Maybe today was the day she'd come to tell him that she'd decided to come home. Then there was the sudden realisation that she was probably only there because he'd put the house up for sale, it was listed on the internet and a board had appeared in the front garden, but had somehow 'forgotten' to mention it to her and she was here to protect her interests.

She got out of her car and started to walk towards him as he waited at the gate, finishing her call as she walked with lots of smiling and blowing of kisses, but for some reason he was convinced that she wasn't talking to anyone, that the whole 'call' thing was window dressing.

"Are you coming in?"

"Yes I need to collect some bits"

Okay, so she hadn't come to say she was staying, and Charles wondered why she felt the need to keep dropping in like this, it wasn't kind to keep building up his hopes only to let him down again and she must be aware that she was doing that. However, kind wasn't a word he would use to describe Rebecca, she was a lot of other things he'd once thought were essential in a life partner, well he still did he supposed, but kind wasn't one of them.

Parsnip started his usual helter skelter dash to the front door as soon as he heard Charles' key in the lock, then stopped and looked confused as Charles stood back to let Rebecca precede him into the hall, it was almost as if the dog had forgotten who she was as he inched forward warily and sniffed her outstretched hand, then went into ecstasy mode, wagging his tail furiously and trying to cover her with kisses as she petted him. Charles couldn't help thinking wryly that he reacted in much the same way when she deigned to be nice to him. The dog bounded into the lounge and jumped up on the pale green velvet sofa, liberally coating it with hairs as he sat and looked at them with his tongue lolling out from the corner of his mouth and Rebecca looked on with disgust.

"Do you let him do that all the time, he's ruining it, get down Parsnip"

"He's not hurting it" He knew he was being petulant and actually he didn't normally let the dog on the furniture but he was buggered if he was telling her that.

"Do you know how much that cost?"

"Of course I do, I paid for the bloody thing, remember?"

She obviously decided that a rapid change of subject was in order, as she always did when they discussed money. She preferred not to discuss the fact that she was incredibly proficient at spending large amounts of his while earning peanuts herself 'working' in her friend's interior design shop, for which she was paid a pittance, barely sufficient to pay for the highlights in her hair once a month.

"So, what's all this about Charles? Putting the house up for sale"

"It's too big for one person, and you've moved on, so I've decided to sell up and …"

"I haven't moved on, I'm still staying in Jane's spare room, I haven't decided what I want to do yet"

"Oh dear, so Mr Muscles hasn't come up to scratch yet then. What's the matter, Rebecca, haven't you managed to detach him from his wife? He has got a wife, I take it?"

"He's separated and if you're going to be unpleasant I'm going to get my stuff and go, I don't need this"

"Yep, course he is, separated I mean" Charles laughed, making his disbelief obvious and knowing that he was infuriating her. He also knew that his jibe about "Mrs. Muscles" had hit a nerve.

"You know you can't sell this house without my say-so, it's not just yours you know, and you've taken your wedding ring off"

"You left, which means that I can sell it"

He had no idea why he bickered with her like this, it didn't achieve anything and usually left him feeling worse and he actually had no idea whether he could sell the house or not, but it didn't look as though it would come to that, her relationship appeared to have the skids under it. It was probably only a matter of time before she came back saying that "she'd remembered her vows" or "she couldn't live without him" or some such garbage that wouldn't involve her having to say she was sorry and would make it seem like she was doing him a favour. At times like these he had to keep reminding himself that they'd made a whole lot of promises in front of their friends and families, promises that he was doing his level best to keep even if she wasn't.

The front door slammed as she flounced out without saying goodbye, so he pushed Parsnip off the sofa and took his wedding ring out of his pocket to put in the fruit bowl, it would feel like tempting fate it put it back on.

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It was a couple of days later when Charles took the stairs two at a time at Parkers, the lift was still out of action, not that he would have used it even if it was in full working order. Molly was standing in the middle of the re-furbished main office; a grand clear out, followed by a coat of paint and new desks and computers had almost turned it into a 21st century working environment, except for the pot plants on every available surface and the fact that they were still using a kettle for making tea rather than the top of the range vending machine that had been installed outside on the landing. She was holding the kettle and chatting to the 'carpet slipper' lady, he could never remember her name, as he went by.

"Been in any good lifts lately?"

"Hello. Not bleeding likely, 'ave you?"

"Nope" He laughed as he went to walk on "Using the stairs is healthier"

"Yeah, course it is" Molly giggled and brandished the kettle "Fancy a cuppa?" Charles was ridiculously pleased, in all the months he'd been coming to Parkers this was the first time anyone had offered to make him a drink.

"Got any coffee?"

"Yeah, but you wouldn't like it" She laughed "Its cheap shit, a supermarket special they have to nearly give away"

"Not Nespresso then?"

"Not what?"

"Nespresso, Rosabaya, it's the coffee I drink"

There was a long pause then "A drink of water's quite nice" she thought about it a bit more then giggled "And it's healthier, goes with using the stairs"

Charles threw back his head and roared with laughter, there was something about the way she giggled that was incredibly infectious. As he walked towards Eddie's office to tell him what he'd decided about the canteen, he caught sight of the fury on Samantha's face as she sat and stared at him from the other end of the office and he knew he couldn't put off talking to her for much longer.

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 **A/N: Thank you for your support, your reviews make my day. The enjoyment I get from putting the fantasies that are in my brain into writing, (obviously I have a very fevered imagination, for example, being stuck in a lift for a while, I suppose a few days would be greedy, with a certain C.J.) is more than doubled when I know I'm sharing it with others.**


	6. Chapter 6

The decision to re-open the canteen at Parkers had apparently gone down really well with the staff, Charles hadn't actually been there when it was announced but Stan had relayed some of the comments and even Eddie had made noises of approval for once, but it was significantly less popular at Head Office. He'd tried really hard to persuade them it was a motivational reward for increased productivity, a jargon filled lame excuse even to his own ears especially as someone pointed out that the increase had started way before there was any hint of the canteen re-opening. His team had been surprised and more than a little annoyed that he hadn't discussed any of it with them, but sometimes old habits die very hard and he'd pulled rank because he was determined it was going to happen and he didn't want anything or anyone to talk him out of doing it.

He still hadn't had any sort of discussion with Samantha about her attitude towards the younger female staff she dealt with in her capacity as a Human Resources specialist, he kept putting it off because he didn't know quite where to start. The whole issue was one of male/female perception, which was a tough thing for an ex-army Captain to broach, he was used to things being reasonably straightforward and not full of subtle nuances of emotions and perceptions and he certainly didn't want to give her the idea that the men in the team were discussing her behind her back or were, in fact, ganging up on her. The two of them had been alone in Doncaster for five days doing an initial reconnaissance of their next target project which should have presented him with the ideal opportunity, but he'd been forced to spend the evenings in a one-to-one situation with her, which he'd hated. He found that he really didn't like her very much at all and he kept remembering Molly's description of her as a snotty witch and thanked heaven that she didn't know his marriage had fallen apart. She never stopped making slightly suggestive remarks and it felt to him as if everything she said contained some sort of innuendo, which he found tasteless and somewhat exhausting, as though he had to be on his guard the whole time.

It was obvious the minute he walked through the front door at Parkers that he had gone from Public Enemy No.1 to Mr. Popularity. Everywhere he went, there were people smiling at him and saying hello, where before they had mostly kept their heads down and ignored him, so he gathered that Eddie had given him the credit for the decision to re-open the canteen which was good of him, he could so easily have taken the applause for himself. He saw Molly in the corridor and was rewarded with one of her beaming smiles as she stopped and said "Thank you" so that he felt that he had been awarded a prize for something.

"I've got no idea what you're talking about"

"Yes you have, giving us back our dinners so me diet ain't next-level shit anymore"

"Oh that, we couldn't have you wasting away could we?" He grinned back at her "Or living off chips from the chippie" A little while ago he'd wondered what it would be like to work with people who liked him and it appeared that he'd just had a taste of it so that he couldn't stop smiling. As he turned and walked away, he wondered how something so simple could make him feel so much better about himself and what he did for a living.

It came as a nasty shock to get the phone call next morning to tell him the Eddie Parker had been taken ill during the night and was in The Royal London at Whitechapel with a suspected stroke. He'd had no time for the old bugger to start with but his recent discussions about the canteen had seen them forge what almost felt like the beginnings of a friendship. Eddie had thanked him for re-considering his decision, saying how important it was that people knew that the company cared about their welfare, which was something Charles had never even considered before. He had issued an invitation to eat lunch with him when the canteen re-opened the following week, which Charles was sorry to have to turn down as he was going to be in Yorkshire. Then, to Charles' utter astonishment, Eddie had thanked him for taking care of Molly in the lift, explaining that she had a decidedly dodgy family background and that he was sure that her claustrophobia had its roots somewhere in her dysfunctional childhood, reminding Charles that she'd told him she'd suffered ever since she was a little girl. He'd found himself wondering about her again, wondering why she lived in a cupboard in Hackney when it meant that she was lonely and couldn't afford to eat and what could possibly have happened to her when she was little to make her so scared.

His decision to visit Parkers, even though they weren't expecting him, was explained away as him just needing to check that everything was under control without Eddie at the helm. Once again the team were pretty pissed, as they considered that any one of them could have gone instead, the situation didn't need the boss. They reminded him that they were all more than capable of keeping an eye on things in Eddie's absence, and he knew they were right but he wanted to go and see for himself, the place was beginning to be a bit of a magnet for him. He was pretty sure that Eddie didn't do a lot of delegating in the day to day running of the company, so the need to make sure there was someone competent in charge was his first priority, but he also just wanted to check that the staff, like Molly for instance, were okay. He knew how dependent she was on Eddie being around and looking out for her, as they all were to a greater or lesser degree.

There was a definite air of relief when he arrived, but it wasn't anything to do with him, apparently it was because Doreen had visited Eddie at lunchtime and he hadn't had a stroke, or so he said, and was, again according to him, on the verge of being discharged. He was adamant that he would be back at work in a couple of days, or at least by the same time next week. Charles was extremely dubious and asked her whether she'd spoken to anyone else to confirm what Eddie had told her, but Doreen, as he was trying to remember to call her, explained that she wasn't family so no-one would tell her anything anyway. He made a snap decision to go and visit him later to find out for himself what was happening and before he'd even thought it through, he found himself asking Molly if she'd like to go with him in case Eddie was in a bad mood and decided to bite, which made them all laugh.

"No, I ain't going in that; I'll take the stairs thanks very much"

"Come on, it's a big lift and it's not going to get stuck, this is a hospital"

"I don't give a shit, you go and I'll see you up there"

"Come on, I'll look after you, you'll be fine"

He held out his hand and tucked her hand in his as he persuaded her into the lift where she stood with her eyes squeezed tightly shut as they travelled upwards to the right floor.

"Come on, you can open your eyes now, we're there" He kept hold of her hand as they walked towards the nursing station, until she pulled it away and hooked it into the pocket of her jeans, almost as if she was embarrassed.

Eddie was fast asleep as they approached his bed and Charles wondered if it had been a mistake to bring her here, Eddie looked so much older than he usually did and so much more ill than he'd expected him to look after Doreen's report.

"'He looks bad, not like Eddie at all"

"Well, sometimes people do, look bad I mean, but it doesn't have to mean anything" Charles was beginning to wonder why it was that he seemed to spend his whole time trying to stop her getting upset about something.

"Yeah, but he looks really old, don't he?"

"Oi, I heard that young lady, what do you mean I look old?"

"You old bugger, what you doing pretending to be dead and scaring _me_ halfto death?" She leaned over and pecked him on the cheek.

"I wasn't pretending anything, I was resting my eyes" Eddie struggled to pull himself up a bit "It's bloody tiring in here what with people prodding and poking you all the time, and waking you up as soon as you drop off. What are you doing here Doll? And why've you bought him with you?"

"You ungrateful old sod, he's come to visit you and he bought me in case you bit 'im, 'ow you feeling?"

"Me? Never better and I don't bite. Where are my grapes?"

"I'll bring you some next time, if you behave yourself. What 'ave they told you, when can you come 'ome?"

"They won't tell me anything, seems like it's none of my business"

"Would you like me to go and see what I can find out?" Up till now Charles had been a spectator of their obvious affection for each other and thought how a few short months ago he would have misconstrued it completely. Eddie nodded so that Charles strode off with purpose to find someone to talk to.

"He's a good bloke you know, Doll"

"What? I thought you said he was a posh bastard, as well as a lot of other things"

"Yes well I was wrong, wasn't I, he's okay, he'll do"

"You're not trying to set us up by any chance are you, you daft old sod" Molly started to giggle "Have you looked at him lately? Seen what he looks like and his suits 'n that and 'ave you looked at me and me jeans?"

"But you'd scrub up well if you tried"

"Thanks … I think" She was still laughing "But I don't think so somehow"

Charles came back almost spitting with angry frustration that no-one would tell him anything because he wasn't a relative and was loudly complaining that the place was overrun with bossy women, so that Molly assumed that his best dose of charm hadn't got him anywhere. She wouldn't mind betting that it was quite a rare thing if you looked the way he did. Eddie explained that the doctor was due to come and give him a verdict in the morning and then promised he would ring when he knew what was happening as Charles reassured him that he was going to stand in, at least for a day or so until he had to go to Doncaster again, when Stan would take over. Molly smiled vaguely as she wondered how she felt about him being around all the time, she was horribly afraid she was beginning to like him a little bit too much.

"Let's find somewhere to eat"

"You don't 'ave to feed me, I'm not a bleeding charity case, well not any more I'm not"

"I know you're not and I know I don't have to feed you, but I'm hungry and I don't want to eat on my own, so stop being stroppy and humour me"

"Sorry"

"God, you're hard work"

"No, I'm not, I'm lovely, me" She giggled.

"Lovely you might be, but you're still bloody hard work" He laughed as well as he started striding up the road as Molly struggled to keep up with him and hoped that it was too dark for him to have seen the way she'd blushed when he'd teased her and agreed she was lovely.

"Oi, is this a race? Cos if it is you win, slow down a bit"

"Sorry" He threw a casual arm round her shoulder as they walked looking for somewhere to eat and she got increasingly tongue tied and increasingly aware of his hand on her shoulder, it felt like it was burning a hole through her sweatshirt.

"This'll do won't it?"

"Are you sure?" It looks a bit …..I don't know"

The fast food outlet she'd stopped in front of was a million miles away from what he was used to, or what he'd been looking for. It looked, as far as Charles was concerned, as if it could do with a total refurbishment not to mention a gallon or so of hot soapy water and a hell of a lot of elbow grease. He shuddered to think what the kitchens at the back looked like, then told himself not to be such a fucking snob, and that he'd obviously gone soft because he'd eaten in far worse places than this when he'd been in the army.

She ducked under his arm as he held the door open for her and she didn't seem to notice the smell of rancid fat that immediately assaulted his nasal passages and made him more dubious than ever about the wisdom of their choice. They sat in a booth on shabby vinyl benches which were threadbare and held together with duct tape in places and looked at the menu. It was quite extensive for such a small place, and Charles perused it carefully, looking for the least life threatening dish on there, figuring that anything with chicken was almost certainly a bio-hazard, but that the beef might be okay as long as it was cooked to death. He looked up to see that Molly was laughing at him.

"What?"

"Come on, it won't kill you"

"Are you sure about that?" He looked around him "I'm not"

"Do you wanna go somewhere else?"

"We can't do that"

"Course we can, this is the east end not bandit country, they ain't gonna shoot us or nothing. It's a fair bit to walk though before we can find anywhere that's not like this"

"No, this'll do, I can't be too long or my poor bloody dog will be sitting by the door with his legs crossed and he's just a puppy really, so I'm not sure what he'll do"

"What, he'll pee on the carpet?" She laughed.

"We haven't got any carpets, it's all wooden floors and it's not the peeing I'm bothered about"

"Oh nice"

"Well, you did ask" Charles found that he was enjoying himself making her laugh, even if he was still deeply suspicious of the food they were about to eat. He was hungry, so the food, when it came, looked and smelled very good, and when he took a deep breath and tasted it, it tasted pretty good as well as long as you didn't dwell too long on thoughts of hand washing and basic hygiene.

"'ave you always done this?"

"Done what?"

"Shifted all over, you know, closing places down and putting people on the dole"

"That's a bit harsh"

"Well it's what you do, innit?"

"No, it's not, well not always, I try and make businesses successful, you know, businesses like Parkers that are struggling a bit, well, the whole team do and no, I haven't always done it, I used to be in the army"

"Bloody hell, that's a bit different innit? From what you do now, I mean. What made you stop being a soldier; I mean you're not that old are you?"

"No you cheeky whotsit, I got injured, got myself shot when I was in Afghanistan and I couldn't do what I wanted to do any more, so I had to find something else"

"What was it like, being a soldier and Afghanistan 'n that?"

Charles started to describe his life as a Captain in Afghan, making the stories about his team of squaddies as amusing as he could and keeping away from describing the day he'd nearly lost his life and then basked in the way her green eyes lit up with amusement as she hung on his every word.

"Do you still miss it?"

"Yup"

Charles hadn't admitted to himself just how much he missed it until now, and here he was sitting in a dingy, grubby café in the east end of London, eating suicidal food and laughing with a beautiful girl he wasn't trying to impress or seduce and who wasn't trying to impress or seduce him either, as the hole in his life that was his lost career in the army, the hole he'd been frantically struggling to fill since the day he'd resigned his commission, threatened to engulf him.

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 **A/N: Thanks for all your kind reviews. I am glad that you are enjoying the slow development of a friendship that started out as so unlikely and the way that Charles is beginning to change the way he views the life he's built since his army days came to an abrupt halt.**

 **This was the last of the chapters that I had fully ready to go before I started publishing, the next one may take a day to fully edit and upload, but I will do it as quickly as I can.**


	7. Chapter 7

"What about you, have you got a family? "

"Course. There's six of us, me and me 2 sisters and 3 brothers, then there's Mum and me Nan"

"No dad?"

"Yeah, but he's a waste of space"

As he watched the happy grin fade and disappear from her face, he was sorry he'd allowed his curiosity about her 'dysfunctional' background to prompt him into asking her about her family so that she was now shifting in her seat as though deeply uncomfortable, and he wasn't sure what to say next.

"Lucky you, having brothers and sisters, there's just me"

Molly leaned over and took hold of his wrist, then turned it over to look at the time, there was no clock on the wall and she wasn't wearing a watch; she was desperate to change the subject from families.

"You know it's gone eight don't you, what about your poor dog?"

"Shit" He'd actually forgotten about Parsnip.

"Yeah, you said"

"Very funny, come on I've got to go"

The argument about her contributing her share of the bill was solved by him completely ignoring everything she said and the argument about whether or not he was driving her home was resolved when he grabbed hold of her wrist and simply pulled her along to the car park where he'd left his car.

"You don't need to do this; I can easily get the bus"

"Molly, will you do me a favour, please?"

"What?

"Will you shut the fuck up?"

She wasn't sure how to respond, whether to pretend to be offended or to laugh at him as she realised that he had a big grin on his face, so she concentrated on giving him directions. Although she knew the area like the back of her hand, she'd never had to direct someone through one-way systems and restricted left or right hand turns before and anyway, for some reason she kept getting her left and right mixed up so that he'd sighed heavily and eventually stopped the car to put the 'sat nav' on as she kept saying 'oops' and 'sorry' so that she wondered why he hadn't put it on in the first place.

"How safe is this?"

"Its fine, I told you it's not bandit country, bit noisy sometimes, especially when the pubs chuck out, but its okay"

They'd pulled up in a dingy side street, made even more unappealing by the garish sodium street lights, and he looked with some concern at the converted industrial unit where Molly rented her cupboard.

"Where do people park?" He was looking at the yellow lines on both sides of the road and the constant stream of traffic passing by.

"They don't. If you left your car 'ere you'd most likely never see it again, or not with its wheels on, and anyway why the hell would you need a car 'ere, there's busses and the tube, and it's a bleeding rat run in the rush 'our"

"I thought you said this wasn't bandit country, go on piss off, I'll see you tomorrow"

He sat and watched her go in the front door of the building and waited until he saw her light go on and she was framed in the first floor window, before he put the car into gear and drove away, thinking just how horrible it was round here.

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"How's your dog?"

"He's fine, thanks"

He patted her arm as he passed her on the way to Eddie's office where he was going to install himself for the day. She was standing at the photocopier ploughing her way through a huge pile of papers, when he turned and asked whether anyone had heard what was happening with Eddie, whether he'd called yet, but everyone looked around at one another then shook their heads, so that Charles decided to visit on his way home if they hadn't heard anything by then. He also decided he probably shouldn't invite Molly to go with him this time; the idea of spending more time with her outside of here seemed a little bit too attractive this morning.

"Can I get you something?" Molly brandished the kettle at the open door of Eddie's office.

"I suppose you've still only got shit coffee" She nodded "Well in that case I'll try the stuff in the machine"

"Good luck"

"Why, what's wrong with it?"

Molly shrugged and shook her head, she'd never tried it and wasn't totally convinced that the descriptions she'd heard the first time other people had tried it were strictly accurate or impartial.

He carried the thin plastic cup very gingerly, constantly swapping it from hand to hand, there didn't appear to be any cup holders around and he was in serious danger of third degree burns on his fingers. He sniffed at the black coffee suspiciously and was rewarded with an aroma strongly reminiscent of farmyard manure and a small sip of the scalding liquid told him it not only smelled horrible but was completely tasteless.

"Molly"

He went to the doorway and beckoned her from where she was still photocopying so that she wandered over with a barely suppressed smirk on her face.

"Yes?"

"You might have warned me"

"I didn't like to" She now had the serious giggles "That bleeding machine looks like it cost you a packet" He shook his head as he made a mental note to get it removed as soon as possible, contract or no contract.

"Come and have lunch with me before I have to push off, in the canteen I mean"

"Okay"

The food in the canteen was good for what it was, Charles certainly wouldn't want to depend on it, because it seemed to him that there was a very heavy bias in favour of chips with everything and there wasn't a salad in sight, but Molly seemed to enjoy it.

"Have we heard from Eddie yet?"

"No"

"You're not worried are you, I mean I'm sure he'll be alright, I'm going to visit him on the way home, I've got to go early anyway and get ready for Doncaster so I'll pop in on the way. I'll let you know afterwards what's happening"

"It's not that, I'm just a bit, you know, worried about what's gonna 'appen if he has to retire, like who's gonna be in charge cos it won't be you, will it? and if it's some stranger I might be redundant again"

"I promise that you're not going to be redundant no matter what happens, okay? Making you redundant would have been a big mistake and I'm glad it didn't happen before. So you can stop worrying"

This was the first time he'd acknowledged that he'd once tried to get rid of her, but she believed him when he said her job was safe and it came as a huge relief, she'd been secretly and guiltily worrying about it ever since they'd first heard what had happened to Eddie and it had made her feel very selfish.

"What do you do with your dog when you go away?"

"He goes to the kennels, and don't look like that" Molly had pulled a face "He likes it there"

"'ow do you know, 'ave you asked him?" Molly broke into her infectious giggle, making him reluctantly follow suit and laugh, even though he'd always hated the woebegone expression on Parsnip's face when he took him there.

"Yep, he sent me a 'thank you' card last time" They both laughed "Now, stop mithering about my bloody dog, and promise me you'll stop worrying and I'll see you when I get back in about a week, okay? And I'll phone later when I've seen Eddie"

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

He was running very late because he'd spent a fair bit of time at the hospital with Eddie, then stopped to call Parkers to tell them that Eddie had had a mini-stroke but was being discharged the next day and would be back at work within a couple of weeks. He'd then spent far longer than usual petting Parsnip when he'd left him at the kennels and reassuring him that it was just for a few days before he realised how bloody stupid he sounded, the dog couldn't understand a word he was saying. He shook his head and told himself that he needed to get out more when he got back from Doncaster; then laughed and blamed Molly that he had come close to kissing the bloody thing goodbye.

She'd used her key and let herself in instead of waiting for him to come home and was sitting with her legs curled under her on the green velvet sofa drinking a cup of his coffee.

"Rebecca, what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Hello, darling, you don't sound very pleased to see me"

"Of course I'm pleased to see you" Actually he wasn't sure he was, he was tired and hungry, he still had to pack and he needed to be up very early the next morning, so an emotional scene right now wasn't top of his wish list "But what do you want?"

"That's not much of a welcome, I thought I'd come and tell you that I missed you, that I've decided that it's time for me to come home"

The cynical side of Charles wanted to crow "So he's dumped you then?", but that would simply be scoring points and his brain was busy racing over what she'd just said and what it meant. For months the thought of this day had been what had kept him going, the whippet thin blonde girl on the sofa, his wife for God's sake, had been the beat of his heart since the day he'd got her to agree to marry him, and now, suddenly, he wasn't sure what he wanted to say to her.

"I don't know, Rebecca, how long before you get bored this time?"

"Don't be like that, okay, I admit it, I made a mistake, but it wasn't all my mistake was it? And now I want to try and put things right, be a family again, you, me and Parsnip. Where is Parsnip by the way?"

"Kennels, I've got to go away tomorrow, and what do you mean it wasn't your entire mistake? You were the one who went off shagging someone else, what the fuck did I do?"

"You were never there for me, always so busy with your job and your team and wanting to talk about this company or that one, and when you weren't doing that, you were complaining about missing the army. It wasn't the sex, it was that I needed someone to make me feel as if I mattered, someone to care about me"

"I cared" He heard the past tense and immediately corrected himself "Care, about you and I certainly never meant to neglect you" so it was apparently all his fault that she'd had to go to bed with Mr. Muscles, he might have known it. Was she right? Had he neglected her or was she just trying, in true Rebecca style, to deflect the blame away from herself? He now recognised that in all the time they'd been together, nothing had ever been her fault, and for the first time ever he found that it really annoyed him.

"I'll say sorry, if it helps"

"Well it would be a start" He wasn't sure what the hell was wrong with him; he'd assumed that he would be over the moon if, or rather when, she came back. He'd thought about it endlessly, even begged her at one point, so that he would have expected to be halfway up the stairs by now trying to rip her clothes off, not sitting here asking himself whether it was what he actually wanted "I think we should take things very slowly because I'm not sure that I can just pick up where we left off, as if nothing happened"

"You sound as though you don't want it to happen, is there someone else?"

"Of course there isn't anyone else, how could there be? And I do want it to happen; it's just that we need to make sure that we're doing the right thing here. I'm be away for a few days which'll give us a chance to think about things and we'll sort things out when I get back"

"What? You're still going? I thought we'd be able to sort things now, I really want to move back home by the weekend"

Right, so Jane wants you gone from her spare room, she didn't bargain on months before you moved in with Mr. Muscles, is that another reason you're here? Charles couldn't switch off the cynical little voice in his head, a cynical voice he didn't know he had as far as Rebecca was concerned.

"Yes I'm still going, it's my job, it's what pays the fucking bills, and if you move back in while I'm away, spare room I think for the time being, don't you?"

"Me or you?"

"Don't push it, Rebecca"

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 **A/N: Thanks for the feedback on the story so far. Please carry on reviewing for me so that I know whether you are still enjoying this. Things get a trifle complicated with the women in his life for poor Charles in the next chapter, Rebecca wants to get her feet back under the table or rather under the bed, and he's not 100% sure it's what he wants any more, Samantha oversteps the mark and Molly is thoroughly pissed off with him.**


	8. Chapter 8

Taking the train to Yorkshire had seemed like a good idea at the time he'd made the arrangements but he wished now that he was driving because sitting on a train left him far too much thinking time about the car crash that was his marriage. The trouble was he had no idea whether he wanted her back or not or whether his reluctance had more to do with punishing her for what she'd put him through than anything else. He'd been a mess when he'd met her, full of self-doubt about his ability to make a success of a new career which needed a ruthless lack of conscience he wasn't sure he possessed, and he was desperately missing the close camaraderie and certainties of his old life in the army.

Rebecca had changed all that, she was quite simply the most attractive girl he'd ever met, slim with sleek blonde hair and a highly toned body, which he'd since found out needed an inordinate amount of time, effort and money being spent in the gym to maintain it, even before she started playing away and she seemed to find him equally attractive. She was always beautifully dressed in the latest gear, clothes that cost a small fortune, something else he didn't find out before they were married and she spent huge amounts of time at the hairdressers maintaining her highlighted blonde hair and having manicures.

Charles had been incredibly proud of the fact that she was his wife, that she always looked amazing and that he drew envious looks when they were out together. His career had really taken off when they were first together and by the time they got married he'd all but forgotten the doubts he used to have about what he was doing and was spending less and less time thinking about old friends and army colleagues, instead he concentrated on his new life almost to the exclusion of everything else. None of that had changed, except that he longer particularly cared about being seen out with her, so he really had no answer as to why he was glad to be on his way to Yorkshire instead of being in Richmond putting his marriage back together.

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"I think you'd better get yourself over to Parkers, Boss"

"Why? What's happened this time?"

The following Wednesday morning back at Head Office and Charles was trying hard to concentrate on his progress report on Doncaster for the management meeting after lunch. He knew that Stan hadn't been able to spend more than a day running things before he'd been stricken with some bug or other and Robbie and Samantha together had taken over the reins. The news about Eddie Parker wasn't great, it was exactly as Molly had feared, he'd had a fright so decided to retire immediately which meant a new General Manager would have to be appointed as a matter of urgency, but surely it wasn't as urgent as Stan was making out.

"I just think you should Boss, that's all" Stan sounded very dubious about something, something he didn't seem prepared to share which irritated Charles, he was back to having a very short fuse after a weekend spent "talking things over" with Rebecca, and then a further two days back in Yorkshire trying to make sense of a basket case of a company in Doncaster.

"I know about Eddie Parker's retirement but I really haven't got any bloody spare time this morning, I'll go tomorrow"

"Okay, your decision of course, Boss" Stan pulled a face and left the room leaving Charles full of a frustrated longing to grab him by the shoulders and scream "Stop being an arse and tell me what the fuck you're on about" at the same time knowing it was the last thing he could do. He came to a sudden decision and abandoned the report that was nowhere near complete and set off for Shoreditch without bothering to tell anyone where he was going, if he turned his mobile off and they didn't know where he was, they could have their bloody management meeting without him.

It didn't take long for him to recognise that he was back to being 'public enemy no. 1', the welcoming smiles and friendly greetings had vanished as he walked through to talk to Robbie ensconced in Eddie's old office. The reception desk had been unmanned, which was unusual and there was no sign of Molly anywhere, so that he was beginning to have a very bad feeling about the decidedly chilly response he got when he stopped to say hello to 'carpet slippers'. The easy smiles and jovial atmosphere of his last visit had vanished and he needed to find Molly and ask her what the fuck had been going on, he knew that he could rely on her, if no-one else, to tell him the truth.

"Where's Molly, Doreen?"

"Don't ask me, I've got no idea"

"Okay" She wasn't the only one who had no idea, he had no idea why she was being so cagey, or what on earth was wrong with her, he wasn't checking up on anyone, he just wanted to talk to Molly. He looked around the office at all the people who were studiously avoiding looking at him, heads down and silent and went to find Robbie.

"What the fuck's gone on here, Robbie, why is there such a shitty atmosphere?"

"No idea, Boss"

"Don't bullshit me, I don't appreciate it, just tell me what's been happening"

"It's probably because Sammy did the redundancies at the end of last week, you know what happens when we start making people redundant and she said we had the list so it really wasn't necessary for us to wait for you to get back"

"What redundancies? What list?" _'Sammy?_ ' since when had Robbie and Samantha been so pally?

"Your list, Boss, the one that Parker wouldn't let you do, but now he's gone …well ...Sam thought we should get on with it, after all we haven't made a lot of progress here have we? We need to start turning this place round pretty damn quick or we'll all be up shit creek"

"Show me this list"

"Haven't got it Boss, Samantha will have it somewhere, but you must know it, you wrote it"

The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach made Charles want to grab Robbie by the neck and yell 'moron' but it wasn't Robbie's fault, it was his. He was the one who hadn't dealt with Samantha, he was the one who hadn't wanted to share his change of heart about Parkers with the rest of the team and he was the one who was going to have to sort it out.

"Ring her and find out who she chopped, Robbie, tell her I'm asking and do it now please" He didn't trust himself to speak to her civilly, she must know exactly how far she'd stepped over the line and how angry he was going to be but she'd done it anyway. What the hell did she think, that he was just going to look the other way and let her get away with it?

"Just the two, Boss, Karen Walters, the Receptionist and Molly Dawes the General Assistant, so nothing too drastic" Robbie looked at the stern mask that was Charles' face "Is there a problem here, Boss?"

"Team meeting 9.00 sharp tomorrow morning, my office, don't be late"

He strode off, leaving Robbie looking at him with consternation written all over his face, he'd been dubious when Samantha had first told him what she intended to do, he'd wanted to wait for Charles to be back or at least call and run it by him first; but then he'd allowed her to walk all over his reservations as only Samantha could when she had the bit between her teeth.

Charles needed to get someone to contact Karen and rescind her notice, but his first priority was to go and see Molly and make sure that she was okay, he hated the thought that she'd think he'd let her down and broken his promise.

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

Parking on the yellow lines in front of her building, he remembered what she'd said about probably never seeing his car again and said a small prayer that the car thieves were having a day off and that the parking enforcement people were busy somewhere else, he didn't particularly care about a parking ticket, he just didn't want them to tow him away. He wasn't sure that if he drove round and looked for somewhere legal to park he'd ever find this place on foot.

"What you doing 'ere?"

He had fortunately got the right door first time by a process of elimination and a lucky guess, but she didn't seem to have any intention of inviting him over the threshold of her 'flat', just half closed the door behind her and stood in front of him with belligerence written all over her. She was towel drying her hair as it hung in damp curly tendrils around her face.

"Can I come in; I need to talk to you?"

She didn't say anything, just turned and waked into the flat, leaving him to follow and close the door behind him as she continued to rub her wet hair. She was right, the flat was small, although nowhere near small enough to be called a cupboard and it wasn't particularly tidy so that she picked up a pile of newspapers off the floor and dumped it on the small table before turning to face him.

"Well?" She still sounded belligerent but was staring at him without a flicker of an expression on her face, something he'd never seen before; she always seemed to wear her emotions on her sleeve so that you only had to look at her to know what she was feeling.

"I had nothing to do with this, Molly, nothing at all. I didn't even know about it until just now and I'm so sorry" He paused and took a deep breath "I've come to tell you to ignore it and to come back to work tomorrow morning, usual time, and" he tried to laugh "don't be late"

He hoped that she would laugh at him or yell at him or something, but her face was still a cold mask of simulated indifference, at least he hoped it was simulated, because just for a moment he was unsure if he was reading this all wrong and making a complete tit of himself.

"What about the witch?"

"Don't worry about her; she's my problem, not yours"

He hadn't meant it to sound as if he was telling her to mind her own business; it just came out that way, so he was appalled to see her green eyes fill with tears, exactly as they had that first day. He reached out to draw her into a hug, at a loss to know what to say next as she looked up at him with tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and running slowly down her face.

"You promised" Her voice quivered slightly as a sob caught in her throat.

"I know, I know I did, I can't tell you how sorry I am"

He tightened his arms round her as she slowly put her arms round his waist and he found himself fighting the urge he'd had as soon as she'd opened the door, the almost overpowering urge to kiss her as his body started to betray him with a tightening in his groin. He moved away abruptly and turned his back, desperately hoping she hadn't noticed his reaction and the tell-tale bulge and horribly afraid she couldn't have missed it.

"Charles?"

"Rebecca's back, we're trying to work things out" His voice sounded harsh and flat, even to his own ears, as he moved towards the door frantically willing his erection to subside, so that he could turn round and face her "I'll see you at work tomorrow, we'll maybe have a chat then, okay?"

"Good luck with sorting things, but I don't s'pose we'll be 'aving any little chats from now on, do you?"

"Probably not"

He knew she was right, that the last few minutes had made it impossible to carry on pretending that there was nothing linking them but a casual friendship between work colleagues. A couple of weeks ago he'd been congratulating himself that he had been spending time with her without trying to impress or seduce her when he'd actually been trying to do both, and the thought of never being able to talk or laugh with her again felt unbearably sad as he left, still unable to turn round and face her.

The bandits had left his car where it was and it still had all its wheels; he hadn't even got a parking ticket so he was able to sit and wait for things to go back to normal, as he struggled to wipe his brain of images of kissing her until they didn't know what day it was, then removing her jeans and the rest of her clothes before bundling her onto the bed in the corner of her room, images that certainly weren't helping him recover enough to drive safely. He tried to tell himself that it was because he hadn't had a love life for nearly seven months, and that they were friends who'd had an emotional conversation, that she was upset, which had upset him, but he knew it wasn't any of that. He had a powerful, almost overwhelming desire to be with her, to make love to her even though he'd got a wife at home who wanted to rekindle their sex life and for whom he couldn't raise the smallest flicker of desire. Just the complication he needed.

On top of that he'd just behaved in a high-handed, 'this is my playpen' manner about her redundancy. He was pretty sure that Samantha would have done everything 'by the book', she was a very efficient H.R. specialist who knew the regulations backwards and he'd just marched in and told an employee to ignore her, and he was about to drive back to the office and tell a second one to do the same. He hated to think of the amount of paperwork that was going to be involved, he had no idea whether he could even, legally, do what he'd just done. Karen was going to be the lucky recipient of his need to stop Molly being affected by the actions of a colleague that he couldn't stand at any price. He told himself that Samantha had to go because he couldn't trust her and for that reason only he was going to have to chop her from his team first thing in the morning. He hadn't yet decided whether or not to keep Robbie in the team, that is if he still had a team after behaving like some lone ranger and then playing truant from the management meeting all afternoon.

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 **A/N: Thanks for your reviews; I think I probably speak for all FF authors when I say that sometimes, when the feedback slows down even slightly, we lose a bit of faith in what we're doing so we need you to confirm that you're still reading and hopefully, enjoying what we write, so thank you for doing that.**

 **Poor Charles, it really wasn't his day and in Chapter 9 he finds that things with Samantha are even more complicated than he expected, that Rebecca is less than thrilled with him and he has to come to terms with the knowledge that he's probably lost Molly.**


	9. Chapter 9

The canteen at Parkers had been completely made-over, well as much as it could be, with balloons and banners and a large trestle table covered with a white sheet full of buffet food, and another one masquerading as a bar in aid of Eddie's retirement party. The staff were standing around in little groups, all dressed up, or as dressed up as they could be, and feeling self-conscious, as though they were with bunches of aliens, not the people they saw every day.

"'ello, didn't think you was coming"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Dunno, just thought you wasn't going to show so I 'ad a couple of drinks"

"Yup, so I see"

It was over a fortnight since the last time he'd been in this building, two and a bit weeks during which everything had changed, except that hers was still the first face he'd sought as he came through the door and he still had the same urge to march across the room to where she was standing chatting with 'carpet slippers' and Karen, and swing her off her feet, then kiss her soundly 'hello'. He'd missed seeing her, but circumstances had made him decide that it was probably politic to stay away until things had calmed down a bit.

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His meeting with Samantha the morning after he'd done his 'I'm in charge here' act had been a complete debacle. It'd been naive of him to assume that Robbie would behave as any sensible squaddie would, and keep him well clear of what was obviously a row brewing over her actions at Parkers. He hadn't, he'd obviously tipped her off, or someone had, that Charles had marched in there and countermanded her redundancy notices which had made her look pretty stupid, as if she had no real say in human resource decisions so that when he summoned her with a flick of his head she was already truculent and defensive, ready to attack.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing, Samantha? You knew that list was way out of date, that it was ancient history, what gave you the right to think you could act on it the way you did without checking?"

"I was doing my job"

"Since when was it your job to decide how a company should be run, or to make arbitrary decisions on who should stay or who should go? That's always been a team decision and I'm the leader of this team, so you don't go behind my back or over my head and do what you like, especially when the two of you were standing in as line management, and especially if your motives are, what shall we say, questionable?"

Shit, he hadn't been intending to mention the bias that the team had commented on, although Robbie may well have changed his mind and Charles couldn't help wondering if it was because if you add two and two you get twenty two, hence 'Sammy'.

" _MY_ motives are not the ones that are questionable" She sounded very defensive so that he wondered whether she knew what she'd been doing or if it was totally subconscious "That list WAS the team decision initially before the old fart put his oar in, and now he's gone we needed to start making some sort of progress. No-one told me that those _team decisions_ had changed and" she smirked "when they came looking for you for the management meeting yesterday, I told them what was going on and they seemed to approve, well, that was before you went and altered things, of course"

Fuck, why the hell hadn't he considered that the snotty witch might well get in first? And what did she mean about her motives not being the questionable ones? "What are you suggesting here Samantha?" As soon as he'd said it he regretted putting himself on the back foot by inviting her to put him on the defensive.

"I'm not the one everyone's sniggering about" Suddenly her voice was loaded with spite as though she'd been bottling it up "I'm not the one with 'a little friend' on the staff at Parkers, one that he has little chats with and has lunch with in the canteen he had re-opened, the one who was down for redundancy and is now, apparently, indispensable" He could almost see the inverted commas she put round the word "But, don't worry, I didn't mention any of this to the management team yesterday when no-one knew where you were"

That sounded remarkably like a threat to Charles as he recognised that she appeared to be far more perceptive than he'd bargained for and that he couldn't defend himself or deny any of it with any degree of conviction. It was all true, except that he hoped people weren't sniggering because that would be horrible for Molly, especially now, and even if he hadn't realised any of it himself until yesterday.

"I think this meeting is over but you need to know that I can't be part of any team that includes someone I can't trust, so changes will have to be made"

He got up and walked out almost tripping over Robbie and Stan who were waiting outside leaning on the wall and drinking coffee, Charles had no idea how long they'd been there and how much they'd been able to hear through the door, it probably depended on how closely they'd had their ears glued to it.

"Meeting's cancelled" He needed to go and start, or attempt to start, some damage limitation with the management team, to make sure that he presented this as a trust issue and not purely that he wanted her out because she was a jealous man-eating harpy who bullied girls who were prettier but less powerful than her. If he told them the truth, he'd be asked to explain why he hadn't dealt with it before now and he had no answer.

In the end the management team supported him, albeit reluctantly. He'd been forced into a lengthy explanation of his non-existent strategy for Parkers, making it up as he went along so that he almost impressed himself, which was more than he did his listeners who actually had quite good bullshit radar. They finally decided that you couldn't have team members going over their leaders' heads, that it would encourage others in the organisation to ignore their 'chain of command' which made Charles smile, it reminded him so much of being under army discipline, so Samantha was moved to the general, and all-female, Human Resources Department which made Stan snigger with barely disguised glee. Robbie had kept his place on the team with a verbal warning as to his future conduct from one of the senior men, a fact that left him suitably chastened and made him admit to Stan that she'd dropped him like a hot cake, blaming him for what'd happened. Stan had relayed that little nugget to Charles with almost the same amount of glee.

Charles was leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, rotating a pen between his fingers while Stan filled him in on what'd gone on.

"She told us all about your so-called friendship with Molly, Boss, couldn't help herself, made it sound very sleazy as if you were making decisions about Parkers to get into her knickers. I knew it was all in her bloody head, what with your wife and everything, so what did you do to Samantha, turn her down?"

"Yep, something like that, and Rebecca's back as it happens, came back a week ago but I'm not sure how long she'll stay this time; we'll have to see"

"How do you feel about it, Boss?"

"Honestly? Haven't got a fucking clue, that's why I could've done without all this at the moment"

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"You lied to me, you bloody lied to me, you bastard, how dare you sit there and say that you're involved with someone else when you said there wasn't anyone? You can't just sit there and say that our marriage is over when it suits you. This is because of Gareth isn't it? You're still punishing me when it was just as much your fault as mine, more if anything"

"Sorry Rebecca but I'm bloody sick of hearing that. This is not because of Gareth or whatever his name is, I really don't care about that any more, I did, but I don't now and the fact is that you went off with him because you wanted to, nothing to do with me. You got bored and you pissed off, now you're saying that you want us to have a baby, is that like you wanted us to have a dog?" He laughed incredulously "Are you nuts? You can't just get bored when you've got a baby and waltz off out of it when it suits you, and I'm sorry but I don't want to have a baby" He was very tempted to add 'with you' but this wasn't about scoring points, this was about calling a halt to this farce "I'm sorry but I care about someone else. I didn't say I was involved with her, because I'm not, we're just friends, I've never even touched her, not even to peck her on the cheek" He decided to ignore what'd happened in her flat, when he'd put his arms round her and wanted to do a hell of a lot more than peck her on the cheek.

"You don't deserve to be second best and that's what you'd be, I don't love you the way I used to, I'm sorry" He decided to try and be as nice as he could, it didn't cost him anything and even though she hadn't given a shit about making him feel second best when it suited her, he'd found that whatever happened or whatever she promised, he was adamant that she had no way back into his life.

"Is it that Samantha? I never trusted her, she always had the hot's for you"

"No, it's not Samantha" He laughed "and it doesn't really matter who it is does it? It doesn't make any difference to the way I feel about you, about us and the fact that there is no us any more, it hasn't even got anything to do with what's his name, Gareth, you and I, we, can't be together, it's over. I'm sorry"

He couldn't help thinking that pissing off was a very strange way of showing a girl who'd apparently had the 'hot's' for him that he wasn't available, but that also didn't matter anymore, none of it did. The whole conversation had only come about because Rebecca had decided that she was fed up with talking things over, so was Charles but he was using it as a way of avoiding going to bed with her, whereas she was sure that it was time to seduce him, making the offer of a baby as an inducement, because she knew that he wanted children while she privately equated pregnancy with terminal illness, both things liable to ruin her figure. She found babies tedious and small children boring; it was only when they got to be teenagers that they became passable and then admitting they were hers would make her look old, so this was a real sacrifice she was offering, one which he didn't seem to be appreciating.

They'd decided to take the house off the market when she'd moved back in, or rather she had while he was away In Doncaster, but a phone call from him to the agent in the morning would start that particular merry-go-round again. They sat together and made sad plans to separate permanently as she seemed to accept what he was saying and agreed to move back home to her parents until the house was sold and they could split their assets, something Charles felt was particularly generous of him bearing in mind that she'd never contributed a penny towards anything and that Charles would keep Parsnip. He felt a huge amount of relief and strangely enough he was sure that she did too, their conversation was calm and dry eyed and far from emotional as they suddenly found that they no longer harboured any ill will, now that they weren't exhausted by fighting to maintain something that was over. It was ironic that he actually liked her more than he had for months.

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Two down, but the one he wanted was a long way out of his reach. He'd spent nearly an hour persuading the management bunch that Samantha was talking out of her backside when she made all sorts of allegations during her disciplinary meeting, so he couldn't afford to make some excuse and disappear off to Parkers. Calling Molly to explain wasn't an option either, unless he wanted her to think he was too much of a coward to stick two fingers up and visit anyway and she might not want to talk to him, their parting had been a bit strained to say the least. Stan had visited several times and Robbie was based there for the moment, at least until a General Manager was appointed. Charles was pretty sure he wouldn't step out of line again. Stan kept giving him quizzical looks when he asked if things were okay there, when what he really wanted to know was how Molly was, but Stan wasn't stupid and Charles was a tad concerned that he was beginning to be suspicious.

The only bright spot on his horizon was his invitation to Eddie's retirement party the following Friday, he reasoned that no-one could read anything into his attendance at that and it would, in fact, be very rude to stay away.

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 **A/N: Thank you so much for your support, you made my Sunday, in fact, my whole weekend!**

 **I would like to say a big, no a huge, welcome back to the Klip Doctor and to say that I wish some of our other 'lost authors' would come back. We miss you.**

 **I would also like to say welcome to our antipodean friends, one of whom is my cousin, but I've told her to wait until the series is complete before she joins us on this site, otherwise she'll know the outcome and that'd spoil it for her.**

 **Next chapter is Eddie's retirement party and Charles having to make all sorts of decisions about the direction he wants his future to take.**

"


	10. Chapter 10

Tugging the short skirt down over her sheer tights didn't make any difference to the way she felt in the dress, she was still horribly afraid that it made her look as if she was touting for rough trade round the back of Kings Cross. It'd looked great in the changing room mirror when she'd bought it, short, very short, and tight, made of stretchy black velvety stuff that clung to her boobs, her flat stomach and her bum. It wasn't the most expensive dress on the rack, as usual she'd had no money to speak of, but she'd felt that it suited her and made her look sexy, but now she was turning this way and that trying to see herself from a lot of different angles and wondering whether it just looked cheap in more ways than one. It was times like this that she missed her Mum and especially her Nan who would have told her the truth, no matter how harsh it sounded. She was very tempted to change into her usual jeans and put a scoop neck top on with them, because she really wasn't sure any more.

Not having seen hide nor hair of him since he'd run away from her, she didn't know whether they were even speaking or how things were going with his wife, she knew it was very selfish but she kept hoping and praying that it hadn't gone well, although she would have thought he would've called or come over to Shoreditch if that was the case. It'd been more than two weeks without a word, but she surely hadn't imagined what was between them the last time she'd seen him. Lovely Stan had been several times, and Robert, the one with the glasses, was there every day, but he wasn't very friendly; the bloody old witch hadn't shown her face at all, but then neither had Charles and she missed him.

Doreen had told her that he and Stan were definitely coming tonight, the one called Robert would be there because he was making the 'nice to have known you, now please shove off' speech, and Molly really hoped that Doreen hadn't got it arse about tit as she sometimes did. Other halves were included in tonight's party and Molly was one of the very few who were going on their own, it wasn't that she couldn't have dredged up someone to go with, she could, but she didn't want to be shackled to someone else if he came on his own, which Doreen had said he was going to, or at least he hadn't mentioned a plus one.

That was what the dress was all about, and the sheer black tights and putting her hair up in a messy, curly topknot, then putting make up on, then washing it off, then putting it back on; she wanted to look different to usual so that he'd notice her and maybe regret what he'd missed when he ran away. She knew he'd fancied her at that moment, well she could hardly have missed it, and she fancied him, really fancied him, but she didn't want to look like some old slapper who was gagging for it.

The response to her appearance by her workmates and their partners was gratifying, even old Bert sucked his teeth then wolf-whistled loudly as he circled round her pretending to be dazzled. Doreen swept away any doubts she'd had about her dress, saying that she looked gorgeous, like someone off of 'X' factor or some pop video and that she should wear a dress more often and to not to be so bloody silly when she'd said she weren't sure. "If you've got it, you flaunt it and you've got it' was the consensus opinion, which made Molly feel a whole lot better, that, and the very large vodka and coke she'd necked as soon as she'd arrived, her courage and confidence were rising in direct relation to her blood alcohol level.

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Persuading Stan that it made sense to take two cars over to Shoreditch hadn't been easy, but Charles had every intention of offering Molly a lift home so that he could be alone with her when he told her about Rebecca and him and probably about what had happened with Samantha as well; he wanted to explain why he hadn't been able to put in an appearance for a couple of weeks, and that it wasn't because he didn't want to see her, because he did. He told Stan that it was because he'd probably need to push off before proceedings finished to get back and let the puppy out, which sounded completely lame, even to him.

Stan had shaken his head and smiled and Charles had a horrible suspicion that he could see straight through him and knew exactly what was going on, and actually, he didn't care if Stan had worked something out, he was going to find out a lot of stuff sooner or later, especially if he was successful in persuading her to let him take her home. He could feel his grin getting wider and wider when he saw her, despite trying to suppress it by biting the inside of his bottom lip; it kept escaping all his attempts at control. She saw him and beamed back, dispelling all his fears that she would be mad at him for staying away all this time, it was only when he got much closer that he realised that the glass in her hand was by no means her first.

"How are you?" He wanted to put his arms round her and apologise if she'd been waiting for him, she kept saying that she didn't think he was coming and he wasn't sure why, he hadn't realised that he was late.

"I'm good" She was trying her best to focus slightly squiffy eyes on him "We 'aven't seen you for a while, where you been?"

"I'll tell you later" The last thing he wanted to do was to explain everything that had been going on in front of an audience which included Doreen, Karen and Bert and a whole group of people he didn't recognise, probably some of the printers and everyone's partners, so he changed the subject the only way he could think of "Can I get anyone a drink?"

"I'll have a vodka and coke please" Molly waved her empty glass at him as he raised his eyebrows and decided that a vodka and coke without the vodka was favourite, it looked to him that she'd had more than enough already. It was as he'd expected, she didn't notice the lack of vodka as she sipped from her replenished glass although Doreen winked at him, so it was obvious that she'd guessed what he'd just done and approved, which made a change from the last time he'd spoken to her.

"Do you like me dress?" Molly had obviously reached the level of blood alcohol that meant that her sift, sort and check mechanisms had broken so that the brakes between her brain and mouth had failed "I bought it for you, wanted to look sphisti… sophris ….. you know, a bit smoother than I usually do, so you would see me like you do them others" Charles laughed uncomfortably as the people around them shuffled a bit, then moved away slightly "I think I'm a bit pissed" Her face was totally serious, curly tendrils of hair were falling over it which she was trying and failing to blow away and her green eyes were huge, but unfocussed, as she stared at him and he longed to put his arms round her and hug her.

"Yep, I think you are a bit" Charles laughed as he tried to move her away from their fascinated audience because much as he tried to keep his voice down, she didn't seem to have any volume control and for the group around them this was providing real entertainment. He tried to give her a hint by dropping his voice to a whisper "and I love your dress"

"Do you?" She beamed, obviously thrilled, then frowned as if puzzled "What you whispering for? I was a bit worried that I looked like a brass in it"

"You could never look like a brass" He'd managed to move her a bit further away from the group "Who are these others you're talking about, the ones that are sophisticated?"

"Your wife for one"

"Yep my wife's sophisticated but she's not my wife anymore, we're separated, getting a divorce, we never got back together" It seemed very important, somehow, that she knew he hadn't slept with Rebecca "She's gone back to live with her parents so she's getting half a house she didn't pay for and I get the dog" He wanted to add 'and with a bit of luck, you as well' but was aware that the group had closed in again so they still had a circle of avid listeners which he wanted to move right away from "Let's go and get some food" He was hastily reassessing his plans for the latter part of the evening, there was no way he wanted to start anything with her by having a drunken shag which could possibly lead to his face being well and truly slapped the following morning.

"I'm sorry"

"What for?"

"Your wife 'n that"

"I'm not"

"Aren't you? And I'm sorry that I got a bit trollied, you know, cos I thought you wasn't gonna show"

"I'm not a bit sorry my wife's not my wife anymore, I'm just sorry that it took me so long to come to my senses, and what on earth made you think I wasn't coming? Of course I was coming, I wanted to see you" He put his hand in the small of her back and started edging her towards the buffet table and away from their spectators "Come on my little pissed womble, let's get you something to eat, soak up some of that booze"

"What did you call me?"

"Well, you're about the same height"

"I'm not you cheeky bugger"

He asked her who the other sophisticated woman was that she'd been talking about and hooted with laughter when she said the witch then explained that he couldn't stand her and that she was history anyway. They were now far enough away from viewers and listeners for him to be able to tell her that he liked her just the way she was, that he didn't want her to try and be like anyone else. That he loved her dress and appreciated seeing her legs because he'd begun to think the jeans were a permanent fixture which were hiding some dark and sinister secret, which made her giggle, and then watched her blush scarlet as he told her he'd been wrong and that her legs were as beautiful as the rest of her.

The official part of the evening began with speeches and toasts while Charles tried hard to concentrate, something that was made unbelievably difficult by Molly standing just in front of him, almost close enough to be leaning against him, so that the baser parts of his anatomy began to reassess his plans once again. As they listened, or he pretended to, he knew that he'd got an idiotic grin on his face and his heart missed a beat as she put her tiny hand behind her and it crept into his, so that he squeezed it, meaning to let go but lacking the willpower as her fingers entwined with his and his high minded decision of earlier that evening all but vanished completely. He looked across and saw Stan raise his eyebrows, so he gave him a weak smile aware that everyone, including Stan, would know everything there was to know by this time Monday, but feeling guilty that he hadn't told him himself, Stan was one of the good guys. He let his eyes sweep round the room and saw that they were now the focal point of the floor show, so that he was conscious of the fact that Samantha had been right about one thing, and that they were the only ones who imagined they were some sort of secret. He wondered if the audience would believe him if he announced that he'd never touched her and decided the answer was probably not.

"Pardon?" Molly had murmured something which he didn't catch so he bent down so that she could whisper in his ear.

"I don't get it. Why do people always buy bleeding clocks for people what retire? You don't need to know the time when you stop at 'ome all day" The feel of her breath against his hair and ear was making him shiver.

"What would you have bought him then?"

"I dunno, a season ticket to a lap dancing club or something" She began to giggle.

"Molly, he's had a mini stroke" Charles laughed "What do you want to do, finish him off?"

"It'd be more fun than sitting at home watching a clock go round all day"

When the speeches were over he steered her across to Eddie suggesting that they should say their goodnights and good luck before he took her home, then waited while she went across to her mates and said her goodnights, hoping that she wouldn't get side tracked so that he'd have to go and retrieve her, then grinning broadly as she wandered back across the room to join him.

"Come on, let's go home" He looked around and waved at the group of people, then nodded at Stan and Robbie, seeing the knowing looks and smirks they were exchanging and thinking that they couldn't be more wrong if they tried.

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"What we doing 'ere?"

"This is where you live, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but where you gonna park? I didn't know we was going to mine, it's a bit of a bleeding mess in there, I thought we was going to yours"

"I'm not parking, and you're going to yours and I'm going to mine"

There was a long silence as she considered what he'd just said.

"You mean, you don't want me to stop with you? I thought you wanted us to be together"

"Of course I want us to be together, I just don't want some drunken thing …. one which you might be sorry about in the morning"

"I didn't know you was drunk"

"You know I'm not talking about me, I've had half a glass, not even that, I just don't want you to …. I thought we could talk tomorrow when you're sober"

"Charles?" She interrupted his attempt at being a gentleman.

"Yes"

"You know you're talking bollocks don't you?

"Am I?

"Course you are, I'm not drunk, I might 'ave been a little bit pissed earlier, but I'm not anymore, and seeing as how you think this is bandit country and you're too bleeding scared to park 'ere, and if you mean it that you wanna be with me, then I think it's time you took me home, don't you? Anyway, I wanna meet your dog"

"Lovely, so it's not me it's Parsnip"

"Parsnip?" She looked at Charles and started to giggle as he nodded "That's not a dog that's a bleeding vegetable you 'ave at Christmas"

Charles leaned across and kissed her cheek as he put the key back in the ignition and started the car.

"Don't let him hear you say that, you'll hurt his feelings"

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 **A/N: Thanks for your kind comments, I am absolutely loving writing this, so hope you carry on enjoying it. To the reviewer who thinks my chapters are too short, I've always thought that somewhere around 2,500 words was about right, and that anymore and I would run the risk of getting boring. Believe me, I could carry on forever, so have to force myself to apply the brakes somewhere.**

 **So, onto Richmond, first night and future plans.**


	11. Chapter 11

"He's well cute inne?" Parsley had, as usual, scattered the cream rugs as he'd pelted down the hallway only to stop dead and walk slowly and gingerly towards the stranger coming through the front door. "Hello mate" she put out her hand for him to sniff as per Charles' instructions and beamed up at him with delight as Parsnip licked her fingers.

"Oi come here you" Charles did what he'd been longing to do since he'd first seen her in the canteen some hours before and bent down and kissed her very gently on her closed mouth "Or did you mean it when you said you were coming to see the dog?"

"What did you think I was coming 'ere for?"

"Oh, I don't know, I'm sure I'll think of something"

Charles put a couple of table lamps on as Molly looked around the lounge with eyes like saucers, the huge pale green velvet chesterfield-type sofa and the cream leather chair with the metal bits that reminded her a bit of the bed thingy in the dentists, the cream blinds at the windows and the dark green silky curtains that weren't shut but were far too long so that they were all bunched up on the shiny dark floorboards. She was sure that it was very trendy, more like a picture in a magazine than a place where people lived, but it was all so tidy that it wasn't very cosy. There was nothing about, no pictures or ornaments or newspapers and no mess anywhere; she turned back towards him with a grin plastered all over her face, she'd expected to feel in awe of his house and she wasn't. Charles shut Parsley out of the room, saying that he didn't need a bloody audience as he turned towards her with his face wreathed in a similar smile so they just stood, without doing or saying anything, and grinned at each other just as they had across the canteen earlier that evening.

Molly's heart was racing as he stroked his thumb down her cheek then cupped her face in the palm of his hand tilting it up so that she was looking at him as she waited eagerly for him to kiss her. Nerves made her want to try and fill the silence, but she couldn't think of anything to say as she became even more aware of something she'd first realised during their car journey over here, that she was still fairly disastrously pissed. She wished he would say something or do something, preferably kiss her, because the anticipation was killing her and she wished more than anything that she'd laid off the vodka, her alcohol levels were still high enough to make her incredibly impatient and she wasn't used to all this softly, softly, slowly, touchy feely stuff. Not that she wasn't loving it, she was, but she was also fighting a temptation to jump him, which, even with her present somewhat clouded judgment she could see would be a mistake.

"You okay?"

"Course" She'd closed her eyes for a second as he'd butterfly kissed the corners of her mouth and then had to snap them open again quickly as the floor tilted alarmingly.

"Right, bedtime I think"

"Oh good"

She wrapped her arms round his neck and entwined her fingers into the curls at the back oblivious to the fact that putting her arms above her head had made her dress ride halfway up the cheeks of her bum. He gently untangled her hands and pulled her arms down, then the skirt of her dress, thanking heaven that she hadn't done the same thing at the party, and stroked the tendrils of hair off her face.

"No"

"No?"

For a minute she didn't understand what he was talking about, surely he wasn't saying 'no' that they weren't going to bed? What the fuck did he mean 'no'?"

"No" He stroked her hair back again.

"You mean that's it?"

She was sure he couldn't possibly be serious because this certainly hadn't been in her plans, and she didn't think it had been in his either, although she wasn't so sure now.

"I think you need to go to bed and sleep it off a bit"

"What? Go to bed and go to sleep? Just like that? On me own?" She was still struggling to make sense of what he was saying.

He nodded and the worst of it was she could see that he was now struggling to keep a straight face as she felt the hot wave of mortification that she could have got this so wrong. He'd tried to dump her at hers, and she'd almost refused to get out of his car, instead she'd invited herself to his and talked about meeting his bleeding dog when they both knew what she was inviting herself for, and he was virtually her boss. He'd turned her down and now he was laughing at her, shit she'd pulled some stunts over the years when she'd had a bit too much, but this one took the prize for just about the dumbest thing she'd ever done.

"Okay" She couldn't remember ever feeling quite so small and stupid in her life, going to bed and getting away from this embarrassment suddenly looked favourite to her.

"I'll get you a drink of water so that you won't get a horrible headache in the morning"

"Thanks"

OGOGOGOGOGOG

The bed was warm and fuggy and comfortable under the duvet as she stretched out, she'd got no idea what time it was but she knew that she needed to get up and use the loo, and it was getting urgent but because the air was chilly in the room she'd been putting off the moment for as long as possible. She turned her head and found herself looking straight into a pair of chocolate brown eyes on the other pillow as a warm grin spread over his face. God, it was his bed, had he invited her or had she just barged her way in? This was a fucking nightmare.

"You okay, sweetheart?"

"Fine, I just need the loo"

She looked into the mirror over the sink with some trepidation as she washed her hands but actually wasn't too unhappy with the way she looked considering the raw material wasn't great. Her hair was beyond help, a complete mass of tangled curls because she hadn't brushed it before she'd crashed last night and she had mascara smudges under her eyes but she wasn't too panda like. It was very chilly in the bathroom making her shiver and she had no memory of coming in here last night, she also had no idea at all where her clothes were, she was stark naked and frozen and didn't even know whether she'd taken them off or he had, but she was pretty certain that they hadn't made love. In the cold light of day, or nearly dawn or whatever time it was, she was again flooded with mortification at what memories she did have of the previous evening, all of it. He must be wondering what the hell he'd let himself in for when he'd taken her home from the party, someone who'd invited themselves to his house and then couldn't even remember getting undressed let alone getting into his bed.

"I'm so sorry" She stood shivering and looking down at where he was lying propped up with his arms folded behind his head.

"What for? What have you done?"

"All of it. Getting pissed, and inviting meself to yours and then 'aving to be put to bed, your bed" She shivered "its bloody freezing in your house, why's it so bleeding cold?"

"The heating goes off at night, come here and get warmed up," He lifted the duvet and invited her to snuggle up against him "Christ, you're freezing. Don't be sorry, I loved it, all of it"

"Really?" She wasn't sure she understood any of this.

"Really. Although you might get the piss taken out of you when you get back to work because we had an audience for most of it, but I loved it, from the moment you told me you'd got pissed because you were scared I wasn't going to show up and that you'd bought a dress specially to make yourself gorgeous for me, which you didn't have to do by the way, you're already bloody gorgeous" he started to laugh "to the bit where you invited yourself home with me and then got in my bed, I loved it all"

"Oh shit, I can't believe I did that in front of everyone" She decided to worry about that later on when she wasn't trying to come to terms with what'd happened with him "We didn't have sex though, did we?"

"No, but there's no rush, we've got all the time in the world, the rest of our lives in fact"

"That's a bit previous, innit?"

"Nope"

"I thought you didn't want to"

"I know what you thought and you were wrong" he shook his head and laughed "Listen, I just didn't want to make love to the girl of my dreams for the first time only to have her fall asleep or throw up half way through"

"Is that what I am?"

"What, the girl of my dreams? Of course you are, you know that" He smiled and kissed the top of her head "Well, you know it when you're not pissed"

"I'm not pissed now"

"No, you're not are you?"

He started to kiss a trail down her neck and across her shoulder then across her collar bone and up to her mouth. He started kissing her gently, the kiss getting deeper and more passionate as she started to kiss him back.

"Charles?"

"Yup?" He carried on kissing a trail down towards her breasts.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can" He started to kiss upwards towards her mouth again.

"Did I undress meself last night or did you take me clothes off? And where the fuck are they, me clothes I mean?"

"Molly, I'm not a bloody saint, so believe me if I'd undressed you last night things would have ended up very different. You got undressed and I picked up your clothes from where you dropped them on the floor and I put them on that chair over there, happy now?" She nodded "Good, now could you please shut up and concentrate?"

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

Charles lay cocooned in a warm glow of satisfaction and happiness, something he'd thought he'd never feel again when he'd lain awake at this sort of time morning after morning in what'd felt like a deep trough of misery, almost despair. He'd been waiting for something he hadn't even wanted, not that he would have admitted that to anyone, not even himself, it had seemed like such an epic fail at the time, now it felt like an incredibly lucky escape. He hadn't even met the beautiful green-eyed girl who was wrapped round his body at the moment, and he hadn't been exaggerating when he'd described her as the girl of his dreams, that was exactly what this felt like, a dream. In a few short weeks she'd changed everything, not only his love life but his whole life, so that the way he looked at things now meant he was beginning to feel happy with himself again, something else he thought he'd lost.

Her face was bathed in the same happy glow of satisfaction as she put a hand up and stroked the hair back from his forehead and then smiled as she holed him beneath the waterline.

"I guess that's the morning after pill for me then"

"Oh shit, I'm sorry" He was appalled that he'd been so carried away in the moment that the thought hadn't even crossed his mind, he couldn't remember ever having something like this happen to him before, he'd always managed to be in full control. "I can't believe I …..…that was so badly organised of me, I'm so sorry"

"What? It's your turn now to keep saying you're sorry is it? Are you saying you're sorry that we made love or sorry that we got a bit carried away for a minute, cos if it's that I think I might 'ave 'ad something to do with it as well as you"

"Of course I'm not sorry we made love, I can't remember being this happy for … well, I can't remember ….. but yes I feel like I should have planned things a bit better than that"

"Listen, don't worry about it, I'll sort it in the morning, it'll be fine, honestly" She grinned at him "I'll join all the bleeding fourteen year olds who 'ad a good night out last night but regret it this morning. And, before you start saying sorry again, I ain't saying I regret it cos I don't, I can't remember being this happy either, it just needs to be sorted, okay?

OGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG

"Morning sleepyhead"

She opened bleary eyes to the welcome sight of a large mug of hot tea and the less welcome sight of a fully dressed Charles pulling a thick sweater over his head.

"Where you going?"

"To take Parsnip out, poor little bugger's got his legs crossed again" He laughed "Then I'll go to the bakery on the way back and get something really unhealthy for breakfast. Stay there, I won't be long" He kissed the tip of her nose.

"I need a shower, I'm minging"

"No you're not"

"Oh I am, believe me. Can I use your toothbrush?"

"Of course you can, but if you're going to get up and shower, make sure you go back afterwards, then we can have breakfast in bed when I get back"

"Okay, but I'm gonna need to make a move soon anyway. I need to go home and get changed before I find the right chemist, there's no way I'm gonna ask for the bleeding thing wearing a dress that makes me look like I'm on me way 'ome from a night on the tiles"

"God Molls, I can't tell you how sorry I am" He shook his head as she pulled a face at him "Okay, okay I'll shut up. If we go home to yours you can pack a few bits and we'll come back and spend the weekend here, I've got some stuff I need to talk to you about"

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

 **A/N: Okay, maybe not as romantic as some, but I thought I'd try to keep it in character and also not get too sloppy, even though that's a real temptation as thoughts of CJ and a bed creep into our imaginations.**

 **Thanks for your lovely comments, as I've said before they mean the world to me.**

 **Next up, Charles talks about the future and Molly is unsure about hers.**


	12. Chapter 12

"Do you want me to come in with you?"

"You're joking, right? Of course I don't, this is embarrassing enough without you being there"

All her gung-ho confidence of the middle of the night before had drained away as they sat in his car outside the chemists their internet search had directed them to. She wasn't the only person who was embarrassed, this was the last place he'd expected or wanted to be this morning and he felt incredibly guilty that so far his relationship with Molly hadn't come anywhere near to the way he'd imagined their first few days together were going to be. He desperately wanted to make it up to her in some way, but on top of this bloody nightmare, he still had a lot of stuff to tell her, some of which she wasn't going to like one little bit.

"Is that it? Do you have to do anything else?" She'd got back in the car and he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

"Nah, they're really bleeding organised, got me a glass of water to take the sodding thing and everything, apparently the quicker you take it, the better it works, so that's it, over with"

"You're never going to have to do that again, I promise"

"I'd better not" She giggled, her natural exuberance starting to break through now that it was over with "That was well embarrassing, maybe you really do 'ave to be fourteen for it nor to matter" she paused "and don't you bloody dare say you're sorry again, let's just forget all about it"

"What do you say we go home and take Parsnip for a walk along the river? You'll love it, I promise" He put the key in the ignition and started the car "We'll find somewhere where they let dogs in and have some lunch"

OGOGOGOGOGOG

Walking along the towpath with an excited Parsnip trying to pull his arm out of its socket as the puppy tried to follow all sorts of strange scents, and with a beautiful girl holding his hand while her long dark curls blew in the stiff breeze and she laughed at the antics of the dog, made the morning seem like a million years ago. They'd had lunch in a pub and she'd reminded him of the last meal they'd shared and how he'd shuddered when they'd first gone into the cafe. Charles had vehemently denied it, saying she was making it up to make him feel bad, even though he was horribly afraid that she was telling the truth, but in the end it didn't matter because they'd ended up in fits of laughter at one of their few shared memories. They'd had to leave before they'd had coffee or a pudding because Parsnip was being such a pain, he kept getting up and sticking his nose in the air as he tried to follow any plate of food that smelled appealing to him, which was most of them, so that Charles had sworn it was the last time he was invited to come with them.

It was starting to get dark and very chilly as they turned for home and Molly was beginning to yawn, whether because the last twenty four hours had been pretty full-on or because of the cold, Charles wasn't sure, but she curled up on the sofa and dropped asleep in the time it took him to make some tea. He stood and looked at her for a couple of minutes, wondering whether he could carry her up to bed without waking her, or whether he should try to find a throw or something to stop her getting chilly while she slept, in the end he didn't do anything, she woke up while he was still considering what to do for the best, and stretched then smiled at him suggesting that they should go to bed.

It was a bit of a fantasy come true as he stripped off her jeans and then the rest of her clothes and then made love to her with a tenderness he didn't know he possessed, desperate to wipe out some of the memories of the last twenty four hours, until he found himself swept up in the same sort of passion that had led to the previous night's debacle, except that this time he made sure there was no repeat. She lay spread-eagled on top of him as they waited for their breathing to slow to normal and for their mingled sweat to dry, and he pulled the duvet over them to stop her getting cold. He butterfly kissed her face and smoothed her hair back from her face finding it impossible to just stop touching her as she started to giggle her incredibly infectious giggle. After a minute or two he began to find it difficult not to laugh without having the faintest idea what was so funny.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No"

"What's funny then?"

"Nothing really, I was just thinking about 'ow everyone at work thinks we've been at it for weeks and 'ow they wouldn't believe me if I said it was just this weekend. What do I tell 'em when I go in on Monday, are we a secret or what? Cos you said that I made a real arse of meself in front of them all yesterday"

"You didn't, well not much" he laughed uncomfortably, as 'talk about ruining the bloody mood again' crossed his mind "It's a bit complicated"

"What d'you mean complicated? Are we together or … What's going on 'ere Charles?"

"We're not a secret, of course we're not, but you might wish we were when the news breaks on Monday"

"What news? Tell me, come on you're making me nervous 'ere and why the fuck would I want us to be a secret?"

He took a deep breath, he'd known this was going to be difficult, but not how difficult he was going to find telling her.

"As of yesterday, I'm on gardening leave" He saw the query written all over her face, he'd known she probably wouldn't know what it meant "It means that we've had a sort of mutual fuck-off session, I don't want to be their 'hatchet man' anymore and they've decided they can survive very nicely without me, thanks very much, but because I've got a water tight contract, they'll be paying me to twiddle my thumbs as I sit at home on my backside for a bit"

"Why?"

"I don't want to do it anymore, simple as that, working with Parkers made me see things ….…. differently" he shrugged, at a loss for a minute as to how much to tell her.

"Was it cos of me? cos of you and me?"

"No, well yes a bit, okay, more than a bit actually, you made me see that I hated what I was doing …. and I didn't much like the person I'd turned into ….. But it wasn't only you" he added hastily "it was Eddie and 'carpet slippers' and Bert and everyone else. I got too bloody close I guess, I wasn't supposed to see Parkers as my pet project"

"'ow were you s'posed to see it?"

"Weren't you listening when I did my speech on Day one? Oh no, that's right you didn't bother to show up did you? couldn't get out of bed in time" He laughed, trying to wipe the horrified expression off her face, the last thing he wanted was for her to feel responsible for what was going on, and he hadn't even touched on the worst bit yet. As pillow talk went, this was leaving a lot to be desired.

"Stop taking the piss and tell me"

"I was supposed to turn it round, make it, maybe not instantly profitable, but to cut the costs so that it was on the way to making a profit, which I didn't do, and then if nothing happened quickly enough, I was supposed to shut it down, to arrange to sell off the assets"

"So you're not doing it anymore why would that make me want to keep you a secret?"

"It's going to happen anyway Molly, that's why I'm on gardening leave, because I didn't want any part of it. As a business it's not working, not making any money, you know that, and never mind the equipment and stuff, it's got a very valuable asset, the building. It might have a crappy lift" he tried to smile "but it's worth a bloody bomb, being where it is, and Parkers own it outright or they did before they were taken over. Even if it was knocked down tomorrow, the land is worth a small fortune, so I'm so sorry, sweetheart, it won't make any difference me not being there any more, they'll just get someone else in and they'll close it down. It's just a question of when, and I think it's going to be sooner rather than later"

"Shit"

"Yep, I'm afraid you're all going to be made redundant and I can't do anything about it this time and you can't tell anybody, because this IS a bloody secret and if it comes out that I've told anyone "He drew a finger across his throat making a slashing movement "In the end we're both going to be out of work, so we'll probably be signing on together"

"Nice"

He laughed as he tried to work out how much more he could tell her without making it impossible for her to keep it to herself, and decided that a few more certainties rather than maybe's should be on the table before he went any further.

"Great, I'm gonna be out of work and I'm gonna lose me cupboard aren't I? gonna end up bleeding 'omeless or 'aving to go back to east 'am and I don't wanna do that"

"Well, I was hoping we could sort something out together. I know you said you don't do living together or happy ever after or what did you call it? all that shit, and I can't ask you to marry me … or anything"

"No it's called bigamy, innit?" she interrupted him and giggled, this had all got terribly serious all of a sudden.

"Okay so I've already got a wife, I hadn't forgotten, but I was thinking that you, me and Parsnip, well …. I know it's a bit soon, and I know we haven't been together long, we haven't even known each that long ….."

"About five minutes"

"Alright smartass" he smoothed her hair back behind her ear "There's no-one I'd rather be with and nowhere I'd rather be than where I am right now and I was hoping that you felt the same way and that we could give it a go"

"What, claim housing benefit together?"

"Very funny, and It won't come to that, I promise. We can't stay here obviously, it's going to be sold … "

"That's okay, I don't like it much anyway" She smirked "No offence"

"None taken and I don't like it much either. So what do you say, shall we find somewhere that's big enough for the three of us and has maybe got a bit of a garden for the Christmas vegetable?"

"I dunno, we've only been together for a day, you don't really know me, you only know the me at work"

"I feel like I've known you for ever, or maybe it's that ever since I met you I've spent a lot of time thinking about you and wanting to see you, but I didn't realise until the other day that worrying about someone all the time at the same time as wanting to take all their clothes off and make love to them means that you've fallen in love with them, but apparently it does"

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

The rest of Saturday night and almost all of Sunday was spent getting to know each other better, which meant that they spent almost the entire time in bed, only getting up to use the bathroom, eat, take Parsnip out and to get his tablet because Moll was convinced that there might be a Job Vacancy site which would have the high flying boss type job opportunities which would suit Charles. She began to get very frustrated with his complete lack of interest in looking, she was worried about him finding something suitable even if he kept saying he was more interested in finding out which were her most sensitive bits than looking at a web site, so she swopped to looking at Right Move to see what houses were available and how much the different areas cost, which gave her the sort of fright that made her change that subject swiftly as well.

It had been her intention to go home on Sunday night, but she'd ended up staying. Charles was making it as difficult as he could for her to drag herself away, so he took her into Parkers first thing Monday morning, saying that he didn't have anything else to do anyway. She'd expected him to drop her off and then make his way home, but they saw Eddie going into the building which made Molly laugh and say she'd always been doubtful that he would be able to stay away and Charles decided to go in and have a chat with him, a chat which lasted for some 2 hours, making Molly suspicious that he'd broken his own rule and told Eddie what was going on.

GOGOGOGOGOGOG

 **A/N: This is the penultimate chapter of the story, and I would like to thank all of you for your wonderful feedback and support, when people express their enjoyment it makes all the effort (and angst and self-doubt) of writing worthwhile.**

 **The last chapter is set a little while in the future ….**


	13. Chapter 13

"I told you that first day he come here, if I was thirty years younger I'd give you a run for your money, young lady"

"Me Nan says stuff like that"

"I can see I'd get on with your Nan, and I've always said that if you're gonna shack up with someone, it's best to choose someone useful, even better if they look like 'im"

"I'm not shacked up with 'im"

"What you bleeding waiting for then?"

Doreen nudged Molly as they sat in the upstairs meeting room of a local pub, the canteen at Parkers being lost to them, watching Charles wait with Eddie until everyone was settled before he began to speak. He gave Molly a huge wink which made a blush creep up her neck until she was sure that someone could warm their hands simply by holding them close to her face. The grin on his face encompassed the whole room, not just Molly, but she couldn't help the identical smile breaking out on her face as if he had smiled at her and her alone, which set off all sorts of sensations in her body as it always did.

The first few weeks after he'd stopped being the Devil's right hand man, well as far as the staff at Parkers were concerned, had been horrible, the redundancy notices had been issued 2 weeks later than Charles had expected and there had been another of the meetings in the canteen to break the news, this time hosted by Robert. There hadn't been a great deal of shock or surprise, most people had seemed to expect it, the disappearance of Charles and Samantha, followed by Stan staying well away had meant that Robert alone was on site and he was very rarely there and spoke to no-one when he was.

She wasn't sure how many of the others suspected she already knew what was going to happen, they all knew she was sleeping with Charles, but no-one had asked her or even mentioned it to her. They were told they would get generous redundancy pay outs, some of them had been there for more than 25 years, but Molly doubted if she and Karen would get anything, they'd already been paid redundancy, holiday pay and money in lieu a few weeks back and no-one had asked for it back, so she wasn't holding her breath. They were told that the plant was closed as of that day, although they would be paid until the end of the month on top of their other entitlements, so that was it, all over. Molly had, like the rest of the women, cried, even though she knew about it, was expecting it and was pretending she didn't, it was still so sad to see what felt like a family broken up.

She had more or less moved in with Charles. She hadn't ever actually said she would, it had just sort of happened, even though she would deny it if asked, saying she was just staying for a bit, and had ceased to rent her cupboard in Hackney at the end of the previous month. His house at Richmond was 'under offer' and she had sat and stared at him, speechless, when he'd told her how much it had been sold for, she didn't think anyone had that sort of money to spend on a house, unless they were a Premiership footballer or one of them Russian oligarch type people but apparently the buyers were neither, just a young family. They were now busy looking for somewhere to go that had a garden for Parsnip and somewhere for Charles to park his precious car. Molly kept calling it his house, she would never admit that it was for her as well, she was still describing her situation as stopping over for a bit till stuff got sorted which was driving him insane and she hadn't ever said she loved him either although he said it all the time and sometimes she even believed him, but she came close when he explained the rest of his plan for Parkers.

He and Eddie were pooling resources, in Eddie's case the money he'd got from selling his shares which he said he was buggered if he was leaving to his greedy relatives, and Charles his strategic planning and organisational skills and abilities, together with the relatively small amount he had in savings. The money from the sale of the Richmond house was earmarked to keep a roof over their heads, or his head as Molly insisted, until they started to make a profit, which was liable to take a while. The split of the assets with Rebecca had ended up being a bit fairer than he'd originally agreed, 75/25 with Rebecca keeping the furniture which Charles hated anyway. This was still a generous share for Rebecca, bearing in mind that she hadn't contributed a penny while they were married, not towards the deposit or the mortgage, but Charles just shrugged and said it was cheap at the price.

They were buying the business back from the receiver, minus the principal asset which they would never have been able to afford, but including the machinery, the office equipment and furniture, and, most importantly, the name, which they'd promptly changed. Parker James would simply move everything to new premises, re-hire the staff and start all over again; today's staff meeting was to set the ball rolling. Most of the original staff had come running back, although some had found other jobs and several had decided on early retirement, but the atmosphere was more of a family reunion and get together than a work related meeting. Charles was slightly concerned because much as the people in this room had become important to him, some much more important than others and one in particular was essential, it was a business and had to run as one and make a profit.

"So, can I have me job back then, boss?"

"What are you going to do to make it worth my while?" Charles had been biting his bottom lip and smirking at her as she'd sat on his lap after supper the previous evening, enjoying the sensation she was creating in his groin.

"Dunno, I'm sure I'll think of something" She squirmed on top of him knowing precisely what she was doing.

"Yeah, but I get that anyway, what am I going to get that's extra?" He was struggling not to laugh out loud and grab hold of her "After all I'm going to have to watch you walk around all day wearing these bloody tight jeans and being driven mad not being able to ravish you in the office" He put his hands on her hips and moved her slightly on his lap so that he could make sure she could feel how ready he was to move to their bed or even the sofa. "Anyway that's nepotism"

"What's that when it's at 'ome? And there's always lunchtimes" She was giggling now as she rubbed her bum against him, making him groan.

"Nepotism? It means giving jobs to friends and families, and it sounds bloody perfect to me if you mean it about lunchtimes and you don't stop what you're doing right now"

They had found a modern workshop with offices the company could afford, there were a lot of businesses gone bust in the area in the last couple of years which made rents affordable. It was close to where the original Parkers had been, but much more conveniently situated for busses, and the facilities were modern, no canteen but a reasonable kitchen area and clean modern loos, so there wasn't much nostalgia for the old place, something Eddie found a bit sad, even if no-one else did. The old building was no more; it'd been bulldozed flat ready for some vast re-development so it was now a case of out of sight, out of mind.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

 **Eighteen months later**

"What are you doing here, apart from trying to distract me?"

"I thought you could take me to lunch, I'm bored"

"You've been at home three days and you're already bored? And I can't I'm snowed under here"

"I've got nothing to do"

"Take Parsnip out for a walk"

"We've already been and 'e looked at me as if I'm nuts when I got 'is lead out again"

"Get Doreen to go out for a sandwich with you or something"

"That wasn't exactly what I 'ad in mind"

"I know what you had in mind" He laughed and put his hand on the firm swelling that was Lexie James "but I can't right now, I'll make it up to you later, I promise. Go on, piss off"

"That's not a nice way to talk, innit?"

There had been no discussions six months ago as to whether the time was right for them to have a baby; the post had bought his Degree Absolute on the same day that Parker James had made their first profit. Okay it was miniscule as Charles kept saying, just about enough for a cream cake all round, and maybe a bottle of wine, but at least things were moving in the right direction and there'd been a definite air of celebration all evening culminating in a "getting carried away" situation later that night. Something which, if Charles was being honest, was a fairly close run thing on a regular basis, but he'd always managed to remind himself of a promise he'd made outside a chemists shop one Saturday. Not this time, and he was fairly sure that Molly had instigated the whole thing, her body had been wrapped round him in such a way that stopping to find a condom required the sort of self-control she knew he didn't possess.

"Do I take it we're not talking 'morning after pill' here?"

He looked down into her green eyes which were gleaming and the air of intense satisfaction which was written all over her then stroked her face, doing what she called his touchy feely thing and then kissed her.

"Might be, depends what you feel about it"

"What? Having a baby? You only had to mention it"

As usual Molly was refusing to admit to having any sort of commitment to what was happening. She still wouldn't admit that she was where she wanted to be and that she was staying, and she still hadn't ever told him that she loved him. He knew she did, just as he knew she wasn't going to go anywhere especially if he'd just managed to get her pregnant, it was just that she refused to say so. The "getting carried away" state of affairs became a morning, noon and night situation, with the noon being restricted to the weekend, except for one memorable Friday when all the rest of the staff had gone to the pub for lunch and she'd fulfilled the promise she'd made to him before she'd started working there. She didn't actually enjoy it as much as he did, it was far too quick for her and a bit uncomfortable being pressed against the office door because it had no lock, and she was very aware that the others could come bowling back at any second, but Charles had found it unbelievably erotic, stripping off her jeans then unbuttoning his own and lifting her up so that she wrapped her legs round him had made him very close to the point of no return before they'd even started. Afterwards, he had kept saying he was sorry, totally aware that he'd been selfish, but Molly had kissed him and said he could make it up to her later and could he please find some tissues because she was a bit sticky, so that they'd both laughed and were innocently sitting on opposite sides of the desk when the rest of the staff started trickling back.

As far as Charles was concerned this happy state of affairs could go on for ever, until the night that Molly found some article on the internet that said that quality was far more important than quantity and decided that they should restrict their lovemaking to once every second, or even better third, day to give his sperm count time to recover. Charles had looked at her with his eyebrows raised in utter disbelief and tried to persuade her that they were already doing things the right way, the perfect way as far as he was concerned, but she wasn't convinced, saying that the article was written by some doctor and he should know. Fortunately for Charles, Lexie Dawes/James had already settled herself in what was to become her home for the next forty weeks and was growing rapidly, preparing to announce her presence by giving her mother ten or so weeks of miserable discomfort.

The blue line on the little white wand had sent Molly into a happy spin, she couldn't wait to tell everyone, she wanted to go straight into work the next day and tell Doreen and the others, but Charles had thought it was a bit early to broadcast the news and tried to put some brakes on her.

"Are you ashamed of me, that you've knocked me up, I mean, is that it?"

"Of course not, I just think we should wait a little while and maybe tell our families first"

"You can tell yours, but I'm not bothered about mine"

His parents had been less than impressed with him when he'd finally gone home to Bath, Molly had refused point blank to go with him, she'd said he had to face them on his own to tell them that he and Rebecca were history, oh and that he'd lost his job, was selling the house and that someone else had sort of moved in. His mother in particular had been devastated, asking if there was any way he could apologise and persuade Rebecca to come back, and had then been even more upset when he'd explained that he wouldn't have her back at any price, that she was the one who'd cheated, not him, that he'd met someone else, so that his mother had then suggested that maybe if Rebecca was the one to apologise they could sort things out. His dad had shaken his head in disbelief and told his mum not to be so bloody daft and that he was looking forward to meeting Molly if she was the reason for the smile on his face. His mum had got over it eventually, but she was still convinced that Molly had broken up his marriage no matter what anyone said so he wasn't sure how she was going to take the news that she was going to have a grandchild, he didn't understand her stance at all, she hadn't even liked Rebecca when they were married.

Charles had never been able to get to the bottom of Molly's problem with her family, she just adamantly refused to discuss it, but he was able to get her to agree to talk to her grandmother, because it was obvious that she badly wanted to share her news with someone she loved, someone that wasn't him. He knew she missed her Nan, as she called her, even if she refused point blank to see her mother and father. There was a huge amount of emotion when they arrived at her grandmother's flat, Molly was in tears as she hugged her and then her Nan got quite emotional when Molly explained that she was pregnant, although there was a bit of an undercurrent which Charles didn't understand. He found her Nan confusing to start with, she was very amusing but she had a laconic delivery of outrageous lines, so that it often took a few seconds to realise what she'd said, and then to appreciate how much of it was sarcastic.

"You wanna keep your eye on this one Molls, if I was thirty years younger I'd fight you for him"

"You'd 'ave to join the queue Nan" She looked at Charles and grinned "Doreen at work 'as got her eye on 'im and she saw 'im first"

"Shit, has she?" Charles didn't mean to sound appalled, it just slipped out that way much to the amusement of the two women.

"Well you tell 'er that family gets first pickings" Nan laughed "Are you going to go and see your Mum and Dad?"

"What? So that they can say 'told you so', don't think so"

"They told you that you'd come running home with your tail between your legs, pregnant and 'omeless, and none of that's true is it? Well you're pregnant, that's true, but you're not on your own and you're not 'omeless, so go and show them they was wrong and show off bit, take 'im with you. I know you don't believe it, but Belinda worries about you"

"Nope"

OGOGOGOGOGOG

"You okay?"

They were in the car going home to their little two up, two down terraced cottage in Bow and Charles was worried about how quiet she was, and then wasn't convinced by her nod.

"Come on Womble, cheer up"

"Don't keep calling me that"

"Why not? It suits you, Wombles are little and funny and cute and everyone loves them"

"Yeah, but they're not sexy are they? And I'm not that little, it's just that you're bleeding tall. Eddie 'ad it right when you first come to Shoreditch, called you a long streak of piss"

"Did he? Lovely, must remember to thank him, and stop pouting, you are sexy, I thought I'd spent the last few weeks showing you just how sexy you are"

"That was different; you was trying to get me pregnant"

"And that's not sexy?" he waited until they were stationary at the lights and leaned across to kiss her, then laughed incredulously "Trust me, Molls, It doesn't get any sexier than that"

"Really?"

"Definitely"

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

 **A/N: Longer chapter then usual I know, but not long enough to split into two. Thanks for your support and for following this through to the end, I hope you enjoyed the last chapter. I am aware that there are one of two loose ends in the story, so may, as one reviewer suggested, do A Matter of Luck Series 2.**

 **I am about to start making a return visit to Consequences so will decide after that, it really depends on what starts beating against my brain demanding to be written.**


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